Hi all,
After using the pick and choose on ebay/sportlots method to get a lot of cards I particularly wanted, I decided that I was missing the thrill of opening packs, and therefore a hobby box was in order. I did a little research and chose this set for two reasons. First, the small size made it likely that I would get a good chunk of the cards in the box and would be able to finish the set relatively cheaply. Relatedly, I liked the mix of rookies and stars in the set -- I am not a big enough NBA fan to care about the vast majority of the players, but a set that focusses on the bigger names is right down my alley. Second, the price (~$60 for 288 cards) seemed pretty reasonable.
When I ordered the set I had the best of intentions. I figured I could open 4 packs a day for almost a week. What joy! By the time the box arrived, I had modified my plan so that I would open half the first day, and then four a day for the next three days. I sort of stuck with this plan. I opened half the box the first day and ended the day with 107/200 of the base set, with a Dwyane Wade swatch card and a couple of other serial numbered cards.
The next morning I woke up earlier than normal and immediately opened four more packs to get to 150/200. I also got a Kyle O'Quinn autograph and a couple of serial numbered holo cards. I was too excited to wait, so four more packs got me up to 191/200. I had most of the really good players, though I was missing the Dwyane Wade and DeMarcus Cousins base cards. I went off to work happy about the prospect of opening the last group the next day.
That didn't happen of course. I got home and the packs were going to be opened. I wrote down the nine missing cards so that I could easily scan for them, and set to it.
Pack #21 contained no new cards. Boo.
Pack #22 was a good one! I got six of the missing cards, including the Wade and the Cousins, leaving only three.
Pack #23 got me very close, with two more missing cards. I was only missing Taurean Prince, a rookie card.
In pack #24, Prince happened to be the very last card that I looked at! A complete set! Yay!
This leads to the question of how uncommon it is to get a full set of base cards in a single hobby box. Clearly the cards are not distributed completely uniformly, or else getting all 200 cards in 264 chances (one insert per pack so only 11 base cards per pack) would be astronomically unlikely. Looking over the individual packs, it seemed like there were always 2 or 3 cards from each range 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, and 151-200, so that changes the probabilities. I was wondering if anyone here knows how cards are assigned to packs, and packs to boxes. I'd be very interested in hearing the details.