2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks brings an early taste of Prizm to the 2021-22 draft class. With a wide variety of colors, iconic silver prizms, and significant autograph potential, is Prizm Draft Picks a rip, flip, hold or pass? We answer all your questions in the 2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball review.

Intro To 2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball

Get a 2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball hobby box on eBay. 

My sales pitch for Panini Prizm Draft Picks is to collect the headlining rookies in their college uniforms as the regular NBA season winds down. I bet you can see why I don’t work for Panini.

Think about this for just a moment: the product, scheduled to release on March 18, is the college draft picks version of Prizm. The NBA season ends on April 10. At this point, the backlogs in production are dizzying.

And that might feel like a soapbox rant, but there’s a reason for it. In short, the value of draft pick (college jersey) cards is significantly deflated when NBA-jersey rookie cards are released simultaneously, which will be the case for Prizm Draft Picks. Yes, it’s Prizm. The all-powerful brand. I get that. But 9 out of 10 collectors would prefer an NBA Donruss Rated Rookie over a Prizm Draft Picks card.

Anyway, here’s the introduction I promised in the header: Prizm Draft Picks Basketball will bring Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Scottie Barnes, and the rest of the 2021-22 rookie class to opti-chrome Prizm cards on March 18, and you can preorder your boxes for $250.

2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball Review Of Formats

Considering buying a box of 2021-22 Prizm Draft Picks? Here’s what you need to know.

Each $250 box includes four packs of 10 cards, and each pack also contains an autograph. So, in every hobby box, you can expect to unwrap 4 autographs, 4 silvers, 8 parallels, and 4 inserts.

Let’s compare the Prizm Draft Pick offerings:

Hobby Box

• 4 packs
• 10 cards per pack
• 4 autographs
• 4 silvers
• 8 parallels
• 4 inserts
• $250 preorder

Choice Box

• 1 pack
• 8 cards per pack
• 1 autograph
• 2 silvers
• 5 choice parallels
• 1 Tiger Stripe Per Case
• $200 preorder

H2 Box

• 5 packs per box
• 5 cards per pack
• 1 autograph
• 4 silvers
• 5 parallels
• 2 inserts
• $150 preorder

Clearly, Choice is a high-risk, high-reward proposition. Meanwhile, the H2 box could offer a decent return, but you should expect to pull an auto of an undrafted free agent or something of similar value. That’s usually how these Prizm Draft Picks boxes work. Best bang for your buck? Hobby. 7 days a week.

2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball Review Of The Checklist

Prizm Collegiate Draft Picks Basketball brings back a similar lineup to what we’ve seen in years past. The insert sets include fireworks, Widescreen and Instant Impact, but let’s be honest, nobody is buying Prizm for the inserts.

The true gems of the product are the colors and parallels, which might look very familiar to a keen eye.

Base (Hobby) Parallels include:

• Silver
• Hyper
• Ruby Wave
• Red – /299
• Blue Wave – /249
• Blue – /199
• Purple Ice – /149
• Blue Ice – /99
• Purple – /75
• Orange Pulsar – /49
• Mojo – /25
• Gold – /10
• Black Gold – /5
• Black – 1/1

The black parallels are 1/1. Look for more Ayo Dosunmu rookie cards on eBay. 

Collectors will also be on the lookout for Draft Picks Autographs of the best players from the draft, and they have a pretty deep parallel set. Look for:

• Hyper
• Red (/199)
• Blue (/149)
• Purple Ice (/99)
• Blue Ice (/75)
• Orange Pulsar (/49)
• Moo (/25)
• Gold (/10)
• Black Gold (/5)
• Black (1/1)

The biggest SP in the case is the iconic Stained Glass and Color Blast inserts, and while they bring some big-pull potential to Prizm Draft Picks, we can only hope they return for actual Prizm basketball this year.

2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball Review Of Value

2021-22 Prizm Draft Picks hobby boxes are preordering for $250, but how well do they age?

Here’s the big caution with Draft Picks cards: they overdo the rookies. Last year, I opened a hobby box of this product and pulled 7 LaMelo Ball rookies and 5 Anthony Edwards. I’m not an economic theorist. But I know enough about supply and demand to understand that flooding the market with college jersey card rookies will not help their long-term value.

Draft Picks cards are still a recent enough invention that we don’t know how they hold up in the long run. However, I wouldn’t bank on these as future investments. If there’s money to be made with Draft Picks cards, it’s almost always in the first couple of weeks of release unless the price is right.

With that said, let’s look at investing possibilities.

Wax

If you were to buy a box at the current preorder price of $250, you might be poised to make some money in the long run.

Here are recent selling pricing for the last several years of hobby boxes:

• 2019-20 Draft Picks Prizm: $500
• 2020-21 Draft Picks Prizm: $385

I know, I know. I’ve spent the whole article trashing the idea of Draft Picks cards but hear me out. With these sealed boxes, you’re not selling cards. You’re selling hope. The 2019-20 boxes sell for $500 to collectors who hope to pull a Ja, Zion, Garland or another rookie autograph from an exceptional draft class. Same with 2020-21, headlined by Edwards, LaMelo, and Halliburton.

The 2019-20 Draft Picks Prizm boxes hold value nicely. Check out what they go for on eBay. 

One caveat is that the 2019-20 and 2020-21 boxes contained 5 autographs instead of 4, but there’s still evidence these Prizm Draft Picks boxes could rise in value. Of course, we can’t project long-term value since these are relatively new. But if you want a $250 to flip in a couple of years, this might be the one.

Singles

Investing in singles is much more dangerous. Collectors prefer having the players in their professional threads, and as mentioned earlier, Prizm Draft Picks cards flood the market with rookies, so their value can’t hold up over time.

Here’s your proof: a LaMelo Ball Silver Prizm sales for $220. The Draft Picks equivalent sells for $6.

The only counter to this market flooding is investing in numbered rookie cards with a defined print run and, therefore, more scarcity. Still, if you’re looking to spend that kind of money, I’d strongly encourage you to invest in an NBA-licensed version of a rookie card for your favorite athlete.

Draft Picks, as singles, are a very risky investment.

Most Prizm Draft Pick singles don’t have great value. But there are exceptions. Look for more Zion autos on eBay. 

Bottomline Of The 2021-22 Panini Prizm Draft Picks Basketball Review

When it comes to 2021-22 Draft Picks, you can only call this product a rip if you get it right at release and want to roll the dice on the cards before the NBA-licensed Prizm cards arrive. Apart from that, ripping this product is nearly a guaranteed loss.

If anything, the product is best suited to be a short-term hold as a sealed product. For example, buying 10 boxes at $250 and selling them in two years for $400 is a quick $1,500 profit before fees. While the low value of singles from Draft Picks is a concern, the sealed boxes seem to hold their own over time.