This Week on NBA Top Shot: An All-Star Pack Drop Bonanza
by Chris Otis
2/18/2022
Welcome back to This Week on NBA Top Shot, a weekly blog from Otis Top Shot and your friends here at MomentRanks that dives into each week’s essential NBA Top Shot news and updates. Pack drops, Flash Challenges, marketplace insights, noteworthy sales, community news — we’ve got you covered on all of it and more.
Everything that happens on Top Shot can be a lot to keep up with — but you’ll be able to find all of the latest Top Shot news and updates here every week. This week was another crazy one, so let’s jump right in.
tl;dr: This Week on NBA Top Shot
A lot went down this week, including two All-Star Pack releases, drama surrounding the new Legendary All-Star Classics set’s impact on a couple full team sets, a tumultuous market, and a huge All-Star NFT auction and marketing push.
While it appears that the randomization issues seen in the previous hybrid pack drops are behind us, worries about transparency, the new pack drop style, and a few other key concerns have been in full focus, leading to a divided Top Shot user base. Emotions for many seem to be running at an all-time high, but I’ll do my best to cut through the drama and cover everything that’s been going on in the world of NBA Top Shot over this past week.
Top Shot Market Update
As I just mentioned above, the Top Shot market had a bit of a rough time this past week. The community’s confidence in the product has taken a bit of a hit as a result of the experimental new pack drop system having several consecutive issues, in addition to frequent site maintenance over the past week or so and several other growing concerns.
That being said, it certainly isn’t time to hit the panic button from my perspective, but this downturn is surely worth monitoring and analyzing. One important possible influence that’s worth considering is the growing presence of NFL All Day and UFC Strike; it may not be that NBA Top Shot’s recent issues are causing a downturn in the market so much as collector’s Dapper Wallets now have other projects to fund as well.
If that’s the case, on-boarding new users will be paramount to keeping the Top Shot market steady. In any case, let’s take a look at the Marketplace Metrics and this week’s biggest sales.
Top Shot Marketplace Metrics
The market’s troubles are most apparent in the MR100 metric, which has fallen below 2,100 for the first time since February 3. Relatively speaking, this isn’t an incredibly low figure (all-time low was below 1700 back in July), but it is indicative of the current negative atmosphere in the community.
The Total Market Cap currently sits at about $750 million after MomentRanks’ new Top Shot Valuation Model went live late last week, which is higher than when the new model first went into action. Next week should be more telling in regards to how the current market sentiment has been affecting the Total Market Cap.
For the 24-hour metrics this week, I decided to zoom out a little bit to provide you all a bigger picture; the graphs below show the 24-hour data over the past month, rather than just the past week.
I think it’s important to note that there haven’t been any massive changes in the number of daily users on the site, with 24-hour Transactions and 24-hour Unique Buyers and Sellers metrics showing very similar highs and lows to the rest of the past month. The only 24-hour metric showing any noticeable change is the 24-hour Sales Volume metric. This signals that there’s less money flowing around the platform than there has been in recent weeks, which is something worth keeping an eye on.
Biggest Top Shot Sales
As has been the case for weeks now, Series 1 Kevin Durant Run It Back Moments continued to be the most frequently purchased high-value Moments on the site over the past week, with three cracking our top five biggest sales.
The biggest and fifth-biggest buys of the week, though, belonged to Top Shot user cute_hamster6263, whose $25,900 purchase of a Series 1 Steph Curry From the Top Moment topped this week’s list, while his $19,799 Series 1 LeBron James MGLE came in fifth. Great pickups, Mr. Hamster!
Top Shot Pack Drops This Week
This week saw two new sets debut across two separate All-Star themed pack drops — the Common Series iteration of Rising Stars, and a brand-new Legendary set called NBA All-Star Classics, which features historical Moments from the 2000 All-Star Weekend in Oakland.
The Rising Stars Common Set features the 24 NBA players participating in this year’s Rising Stars Challenge, set to be played on Friday, February 18, with mint counts of 17,500 for the 21 non-Challenge Reward Moments. The NBA All-Star Classics Legendary set from the 2000 All-Star Weekend will feature Moments minted to just 50, making it one of the lowest-minted sets on the platform.
One important aspect to mention, which did not go over well with most of the Top Shot community, is that only the Moments from the dunk contest or three-point contest will count towards that player’s Team Set; Moments from either the Rising Stars Challenge (or its predecessors) or the All-Star Game itself will be marked as whatever team the player was participating with in that game (e.g. Western Conference, Team Rookie, etc).
This has effectively created massive bottlenecks for Full Team Sets for teams like the Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz, justifiably upsetting many collectors who feel singled out by this decision.
Aside from the controversy, though, these packs were stuffed full of awesome Moments from exciting players past and present. Let’s take a closer look at each release.
NBA All-Star Packs (Release 1)
The first drop of the NBA All-Star Packs, which was released on Monday, February 14, was centered around the Rising Stars Common set; the first seven Moments were included in this pack drop. The most notable Rising Star Moment in this release is arguably this Franz Wagner Moment where he exposes Rudy Gobert as the very overrated on-ball defender he truly is.
Some of the other special Moments in these packs included Holo Icon Moments from standout rookies Jalen Green and Evan Mobley, and an MGLE from Miami Heat superstar Jimmy Butler.
This release featured both Standard and Elite Packs, following the experimental new pack drop model. Elite Packs are more expensive, but also provide additional odds to score a rare or legendary Moment. Here are with the details of each pack:
- All-Star Standard Pack
- 4 Moments
- 3 guaranteed Series 3 Base Set Moments
- 1 additional Moment
- S3 Base Set (Common) – 56.957%
- Rising Stars (Common LE) – 41.173%
- MGLE (Rare) – 1.796%
- Holo Icon (Legendary) – 0.073%
- $19
- 175,000 packs available
- Purchase limits (per transaction):
- 0 Collector Score: 2 packs
- 1,000+ Collector Score: 3 Packs
- 3,000+ Collector Score: 4 Packs
- 5,000+ Collector Score: 5 Packs
- 4 Moments
- All-Star Elite Pack
- 5 Moments
- 4 guaranteed S3 Base Set Moments
- 1 additional Moment
- Rising Stars (Common LE) – 88.821%
- MGLE (Rare) – 9.502%
- Holo Icon (Legendary) – 1.675%
- $49
- 22,250 packs available
- Purchase limits (per transaction):
- 9,500+ Collector Score: 1 pack
- 22,500+ Collector Score: 2 Packs
- 45,000+ Collector Score: 3 Packs
- 90,000+ Collector Score: 4 packs
- 5 Moments
NBA All-Star Packs (Release 2)
Release 2 of the NBA All-Star Packs came on Thursday, February 17, with another two-tiered Standard and Elite approach. The next wave of seven Rising Stars Moments were included in this drop, as well as the first five NBA All-Star Classics Moments.
My personal favorite Rising Stars Moment from this release is this Jalen Suggs chase-down block, but the obvious highlight of this release is the iconic Vince Carter Eastbay dunk from the 2000 Dunk Contest. Bottleneck controversy notwithstanding, this instantly became one of the best Moments on the entire platform as soon as it was announced.
The details of these two packs are below:
- All-Star Standard Pack (Drop 2)
- 4 Moments
- 3 guaranteed Series 3 Base Set Moments
- 1 additional Moment
- S3 Base Set (Common) – 56.095%
- Rising Stars (Common LE) – 41.871%
- MGLE (Rare) – 2.008%
- NBA All-Star Classics (Legendary) – 0.024%
- $19
- 200,000 packs available
- Purchase limits (per transaction):
- 0 Collector Score: 2 packs
- 1,000+ Collector Score: 3 Packs
- 3,000+ Collector Score: 4 Packs
- 5,000+ Collector Score: 5 Packs
- 4 Moments
- All-Star Elite Pack (Drop 2)
- 5 Moments
- 4 guaranteed S3 Base Set Moments
- 1 additional Moment
- Rising Stars (Common LE) – 87.254%
- MGLE (Rare) – 11.852%
- NBA All-Star Classics (Legendary) – 0.892%
- $49
- 18,500 packs available
- Purchase limits (per transaction):
- 9,000+ Collector Score: 1 pack
- 27,500+ Collector Score: 2 Packs
- 55,000+ Collector Score: 3 Packs
- 110,000+ Collector Score: 4 packs
- 5 Moments
This Week in Top Shot Challenges
This week was a fun one for Showcase Challenges. Top Shot’s first ever week-long Flash Challenge wrapped up and was the highlight of several fun new Flash Challenges, and a few Traditional Showcase Challenges kicked off as well.
Traditional Showcase Challenges
The Series 3 iterations of Holo Icon and MGLE Challenges continued this week, with Holo Icon S3 Challenge 4 and MGLE S3 Challenge 7, which featured Moments from Chris Paul and Karl-Anthony Towns, respectively. Paul’s new Holo finished with 41 completions, while KAT’s MGLE was minted to 319.
Meanwhile, Rising Stars S3 Challenge 1 kicked off as well, featuring a Rising Stars Moment from the 2021 NBA Draft’s top overall pick Cade Cunningham as the reward.
Flash Challenges
- No Days Off (2/7 – 2/13)
- Requirements:
- A Moments from each of the players who were the daily leaders in points on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, assists on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10, rebounds on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, and three-pointers made on Feb. 13.
- Reward:
- Requirements:
- Add it Up (2/11 – 2/13)
- Requirements:
- A Moment from each of the top five players with the most combined points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals in a single game from Feb. 11-13.
- Reward:
- Requirements:
- Love is in the Air (2/14)
- Requirements:
- A Moment from the first player in each game to reach 10 points, 2 assists, and 2 rebounds during the games on Feb. 14, plus any additional Moment of Kevin Love, Denzel Valentine, Josh Hart, or Derrick Rose.
- Reward:
- Requirements:
- Iron Man (2/15)
- Requirements:
- A Moment from each of the players with the most time played across the games on Feb. 15.
- Reward:
- Mikal Bridges MSFE Moment
- Requirements:
- Good and Bad (2/16)
- Requirements:
- Easy: A Moment from each of the top five players with the highest total of points minus turnovers and fouls during the games on Feb 16.
- Hard: A Moment from each of the top ten players with the highest total of points minus turnovers and fouls during the games on Feb 16, using only Top Shot Debut Moments and/or Kevin Durant or LeBron James Seeing Stars Moments.
- Legendary: One DeMar DeRozan S3 Holo Icon Moment.
- Reward:
- Easy: Series 2 Base Set Pack
- Hard/Legendary: DeMar DeRozan MSFE Moment
- Requirements:
- Take Flight (2/17)
- Requirements:
- Moments from the players who had the most dunks in each of the games on Feb 17, as well as five additional Series 1 or Series 2 Throwdowns Moments.
- Reward:
- Jalen Green MSFE Moment
- Requirements:
Miscellaneous Top Shot Updates
- Per the above tweets, only Moments from the Dunk Contest or 3-Point Contest in the NBA All-Star Classics Set will count towards their NBA teams sets, which has created some really difficult bottlenecks for Full Team Sets and ignited debates throughout the community.
- NBA Top Shot is running an auction and giveaway for special All-Star VIP Pass NFTs that will provide the winners access to incredible fan experiences for the next five NBA All-Star Games, starting with next year’s contest.
- One important thing to note about this is the marketing aspect; there will only be one giveaway winner so talks of this being “utility for collectors” is obviously inaccurate, but this auction (and thus NBA Top Shot) will be advertised throughout All-Star Weekend on TNT and NBA TV. This is an extremely big step forward in marketing and broadcast integration for the platform, which signals they aren’t done pushing for growth after the KD Takeover.
- NBA Top Shot posted this blog further detailing their big plans for All-Star Weekend. Notable highlights from the blog are below:
- Across the Dapperverse, NFL All Day and UFC Strike both had big weeks, with NFL All Day dropping Super Bowl packs on Wednesday and Friday, and UFC Strike opening up its marketplace.
The Week Ahead on Top Shot
Call me a shill or an eternal optimist if you must, but my prediction is that the controversies and negative atmosphere clouding the Top Shot community and product at present will be a thing of the past by this time next week; so long as Top Shot can get out of its own way and have no further pack drop problems or extended periods of momentum-killing maintenance.
This All-Star Weekend weekend should bring an unprecedented number of new eyes to the platform. Just wait until Jalen Green shouts “TOP SHOT THAT!” after slamming home some gravity-defying dunk on Saturday night in the Dunk Contest if you don’t believe me.
Looking later into next week, my guess would be that the final release of the All-Star Packs will come on Thursday, as that would give Top Shot a few days to pick out the best All-Star Moments and fire up the ol’ minting machine. But perhaps we could get a surprise release earlier in the week, so we shall see!
Flash Challenges should continue to be dynamic and unrelenting throughout the weekend and into next week, and don’t forget there are impending Traditional Showcase Challenges for Rising Stars and the NBA All-Star Classics sets to look forward to as well.
That’s all for this week everyone, thanks for reading and I’ll see you all back here next Friday.