Thomas Robinson Draft Redemption Card

Remember when you were a kid and the first thing you did was rush to the trading card aisle of the store, with the big prize usually being a fresh piece of gum in the pack? Maybe you’d get extra lucky and find a numbered card or a refactor worth a few dollars which you’d trade to a friend for a few rookies.

Long gone are those days.

Now it’s all about game used and autographed trading cards with the rest more or less essentially acting as pack filler.

We’ve seem the astronomical prices that some cards can go for, be it a 2010 Stephen Strasburg Bowman that sold for $17,500 bucks or a 2001 Topps Reserve of Albert Pujols that sold for just shy of $9,000 bucks. It’s been said to be a dying market, but, it’s hard to imagine that with those prices.

And that brings me to the topic of Thomas Robinson, who recently joined Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Harrison Barnes, Andre Drummond, Austin Rivers, John Henson and Jared Sullinger as members of the Panini team. The signing allows Panini America exclusive rights to produce autographed trading cards featuring Thomas and currently 54 of the 60 2012 NBA Draft picks.

If you’re looking to get your hands on an exclusive Thomas Robinson autograph, you’ll be able to do so in the 2012-13 NBA HOOPS set which will be released August 15th.

Scott and I have nearly mirrored our top seven picks, the lone difference being the fourth and fifth pick where we have Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Harrison Barnes going to different teams, something we both had in version 2.0 as well.

The Houston Rockets have also altered our mocks as their new draft positions have forced us to make some changes from 2.0, mine possibly the biggest as I have Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger leaping from the 20′s into the lotto after their trade of Samuel Dalembert earlier today.

We’ll continue draft coverage throughout tomorrow, so continue to check back for breaking draft news.

If you’re interested in the previous versions:

Mock Draft 1.0
Mock Draft 2.0