First and foremost, special thanks to Clay from Topps for providing us at Hobby Insider the chance to review one of there newest and hottest products.

2005-06 Topps Basketball

Each sealed box contains 36 packs of 10 card each in a 250+ card base set. Parallel sets: Black Border (#'d to 500) and Gold Border (#'d to 99). Inserts: All-Star Altitude(25 top performers from the 2005 NBA All-Star festivities), Critical Component (15 pros with clutch skills), Versatile Velocity (10 players set apart by their flexibility and speed), Relics Memorabilia cards 1:89 (All-Star Altitude > #'d to 250, Rise to the Occasion, Finishing Touch, and Celebrity Threads), and Autograph cards 1:212 (Rookie Photo Shoot: Dual > #'d to 20, Triple > #'d to 10, and Quads > #'d to 5; Marks of Excellence, and Signs of Stardom Celebrity). Insert ratios for Memorabilia and/or Autograph card is 1:63.

The base cards have a great new design for this year featuring a distinctive design at the top of the cards. The bottom of the cards has a sort of swoosh where the players name and team are located. Superb action photos of the players are quite unique looking.

Great rookie cards of the top 30 draft picks are a highlight of this box. At least one rookie card per pack on average. We pulled rookie cards of Warrick, Green, Head, Frye, Hodge, McCants, Granger and many others. As you can see there are also rookie cards of Celebrities in the set. We pulled Electra, Brinkley, Elizabeth, McCarthy and Jay-Z.

We pulled (7) inserts in the box including; Critical Component Tim Duncan and Vince Carter. The All-Star Altitude pulls were; Manu Ginobili, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Our Versatile Velocity pull was Gilbert Arenas. We also pulled an authentic game-worn jersey of Shaquille O'Neal of the Miami Heat.