On Thursday, February 24, NBA Top Shot will be releasing their third Edition of the NBA All-Star packs, again using the Elite and Standard pack model to distribute the Moments. This drop will feature “Legendary” Moments from the 2000 All-Star weekend, “Rare” Moments from the 2022 All-Star game and another round of Rising Stars.
Like last time, this drop will be attaching 50-mint, Full Team Set bottlenecks to Houston and Toronto (again), with highlights from the 2000 Dunk Competition featuring Tracy McGrady and Steve Francis, but none of the other Legendary Moments will impact Team Sets. The Reward for collecting all the Legendary All-Star Moments will be a Shaquille O’Neal block, but the money required to accomplish that feat will put this Challenge out of reach for most collectors.
The Rare Moments from the All-Star game will come in an Edition Size of 2022 and will feature Stephen Curry, Trae Young, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Jarrett Allen, Nikola Jokic, Andrew Wiggins, Ja Morant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Dejounte Murray, with the Reward for completing this set being LeBron James.
Lastly, Top Shot will be releasing another set of Rising Stars, introducing 17.5K-mint Moments of Saddiq Bey, Jalen Green, Jaden McDaniels, Herb Jones, Cole Anthony, Davion Mitchell and Scottie Barnes, and the Reward Moment for this latest Rising Stars release will be LaMelo Ball.
For Jones, Mitchell and Barnes, this will be just their second Common Moment, which will create cheaper alternative options to their Four Star Rookie Debuts. As for Bey and McDaniels, they’ll be receiving their first Moments from Series 3, and just their third Common in Top Shot’s current collection. Jalen Green, who only recently had his Four Star Rookie Debut introduced, will be getting yet another Common Moment (his third over the past few weeks) and this will be Anthony’s fourth Common.
I think LaMelo could be a popular Reward, so this set of Rising Stars could be the most valuable we’ve seen thus far, which is why I’ll be targeting Green, Mitchell, Barnes and Jones on the dip. These are all attractive targets because even if they tank after the Challenge, they could all still hit in a later Flash Challenge which would form a two-option bottleneck for everyone but Green. I’m targeting Green more so because of his popularity, and I think I’ll be able to flip him for a profit during the Challenge. More on that later.
Elite All-Star Pack – $49
42K packs – 5 Moments per pack
Drop Time: Thursday, Feb. 24 at 10 am PST
CS Requirement: 4K
Purchase Limits:
4K CS = 1 pack
10K CS = 2 packs
25K CS = 3 packs
50K CS = 4 packs
Odds:
79.827% – 4 Common Base Set & 1 Common Rising Stars
19.764% – 4 Common Base Set & 1 Rare 2022 All-Star Game LE
0.408% – 4 Common Base Set & 1 Legendary NBA All-Star Classic
Something worth noting here, the 4K CS score requirement is the lowest required score since Top Shot introduced these Elite Packs, and they’ve also dramatically lowered the CS requirement on the purchase limits. For example, the KD Certified Elite pack required a 10K CS to gain access to the queue, but to be able to buy four packs at a time, you would of needed a CS of 100K. The CS requirements have been gradually rolled pack with each release of the Elite/Standard packs, as Top Shot continues to lower the utility of having a high Collector Score, which has been an interesting thing to see given how large a role CS played during Series 2.
Another thing worth noting is that they’ve increased the odds of pulling a Rare Moment from 9.502% in the first All-Star pack release to 19.764%, but they’ve lowered the odds of grabbing a Legendary from 1.675% to 0.408%.
Standard All-Star Pack – $19
220K packs – 4 Moments per pack
Drop Time: Thursday, Feb. 24 at 12 pm PST
CS Requirement: none
Purchase Limits:
0 CS = 3 packs
1K CS = 4 packs
3K CS = 5 packs
5K CS = 6 packs
Odds:
61.024% – 4 Common Base Set Moments
34.478% – 3 Common Base Set Moments & 1 Common Rising Star
4.471% – 3 Common Base Set Moments & 1 Rare 2022 All-Star Game LE
0.024% – 3 Common Base Set Moments & 1 Legendary All-Star Classic
Like we saw with the Elite Pack, Top Shot has increased odds for Standard Pack purchasers to pull a Rare Moment from 1.796% in the first All-Star pack release to 4.471% in this most recent iteration, but they’ve also reduced the chance of landing a Legendary Moment from 0.0073% to 0.024%. So, 95.5% of these Standard Packs will be filled with nothing but Commons, and a majority of these $19 packs will be stuffed with 60K Moments.
Buying the Dip
If you don’t like the odds in this drop, you can still participate in the market by buying the dip on the popular Rising Stars, with the intention of selling them for a higher price later that night. As a reminder, once Top Shot unlocks the Moments from this drop, there tends to be a 10-20-minute window where folks ruthlessly undercut each other to unload their Moment as quickly as possible, but then there’s a steady rise that typically peaks shortly after a Challenge is announced. So, it’s during that dip that collectors have a shot of making some profit.
As I said at the top, I’ll be targeting Green, Mitchell, Barnes and Jones, and I like to go after serials that are 1K and under, as having a quality serial number means you won’t be attached to the lowest ask. If I’m targeting a triple-digit serial, I like it to be under 700, as those stand out more when scrolling through the listings and also have a psychological effect of more intrinsic value. So, I’m usually not fighting over the lowest, of the lowest asks, I scroll up and seek out a nice looking triple digit or 1K – and I wait about 15 minutes before I start buying. Evaluate.Market, MomentRanks and LiveToken are all useful tools when attempting to buy the dip.
Incoming Base Set Bottlenecks
Aaron Wiggins 4K
Jose Alvarado 12K
John Konchar 12K
Lauri Markkanen 60K
Rajon Rondo 60K
Reggie Bullock 60K
David Nwaba 60K
Stanley Johnson 60K
Georges Niang 60K
Incoming Base Set Bottleneck Breakers
Dwight Howard 60K
Patty Mills 60K
Reggie Bullock 60K
Tyus Jones 60K
Naz Reid 60K
Darius Bazley 60K
Moe Harkless 60K
