Need a reason to look forward to the 2008-09 basketball card market? How about this: no exclusives. For the first time since 2003, we won't have to open one company's products and know we can't get a signed rookie card of several players. Upper Deck had LeBron in 2003. Since then, guys like Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Adam Morrison, Andrew Bogut, Emeka Okafor, etc. have been exclusive to either Upper Deck or Topps.

This year, we can expect everyone in every product for the mostpart. I wondered what it meant when Upper Deck sent out a press release the day after the draft saying they had signed the top 10 picks in the draft. Topps had already emailed me about the Draft Day Autographs available on its site (which I've written about a couple entries ago) so I knew they already had autographs in place for those players. Then Topps send out a release that it signed the top 15 players in the draft. It all makes sense now.

We can finally look forward to all the products being loaded with rookie content and nothing held back. That can only be good for collectors.

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Have you read the stuff about Arizona-recruit Brandon Jennings heading overseas? He had struggled with becoming eligible with his SAT scores, but has already decided to play next year overseas and then make himself eligible for the draft. A couple years ago, he would have been in the draft, but the NBA changed the rule so high schoolers have to go to college for a year, but Jennings is bolting overseas. I hope this doesn't start a trend. If you aren't familiar with Jennings, he's a lightning-quick point guard who has all the makings of an NBA star. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.