With the All-Star game in the books for the NBA it was only a matter of time before the people behind the scenes at NBA Top Shot took advantage. Picking 20 different moments from 20 different players (including this all-timer of Steph Curry turning his back to the basket) for their next Rare tier set, the team had come up with the next group of moments to put out into the Top Shot world. Next was setting the pack details, drop time and account requirements.
I worry about the pack details first and foremost. This particular pack was announced to cost $229 and have 1 rare tier All-Star game moment (20 optional moments that has 2021 total moments produced each so will be very hard to get) along with 6 base set cards.
Checking the marketplace at the time, the cheapest rare tier card was listed for over $380.00 while base cards ranged from $15-$20 for regular ones and $60-$80 for ones in current challenges. While every pack at this stage is a good investment it’s still smart practice to get an idea on your return on investment potential.
At that point, I decide that I’m in. One way they are trying to combat bots and people simply looking to profit is by requiring a certain amount of moments to be eligible for the drop. This was the case for me as to have a shot at the All-Star pack you needed 3 moments and I only had 2 at the time. But after $20 and an admittedly gorgeous De’Aaron Fox dunk moment purchase later I was ready to join the drop.
After they delayed the drop by 2 hours to stabilize the servers, I waited until about 20 minutes before the announced scheduled time (it’s on their website, email blast, twitch, and discord one they revealed the information the day before) and went to jump in.
Failure to launch. Top Shot has been plagued by its own success and this was just another example. They were quick to announce that the drop was off so those like me weren’t left thinking we missed the que completely as well as setting the drop for the next day but it was still rather disappointing as you can hear in the video.
So the next morning I jumped back in expecting the same troubles but was pleasantly surprised when the que worked as intended. Adding in a “are you a human?” button along with making me select all the squares with traffic lights was a small price to pay for such a smooth transition into the countdown for the drop. I had my lottery ticket and it was time to see if my numbers hit.
Another drop, another instance of me going home empty handed after lucking into a pack my first try. Still though, you can see the crazy demand people have at the moment with how far back in line I was along with how much trouble they had getting the drop off. And I’ll be right there in line for the next one, regardless of how discouraged I’ll get when I don’t get one the next go around. I’m still in on Top Shot even after that initial success hasn’t continued as easily going forward.
About Trey Hill: Podcast host over at Charity Stripe Commentary, scouring NBA Twitter content over on @finalfinally, and of course writing for Hoop Social!
Trey Hill
Podcast host over at Charity Stripe Commentary, scouring NBA Twitter content over on @finalfinally, and of course writing for HoopSocial!