welcome back loyal listeners the stacking slabs podcast network to season five episode ten of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go by at cold lunch cards mostly on the instagram machine but you can find me on other corners of the internet as well and i am so excited about season five season five has been a continuation from season four in which we talked all about era by era of wnba cards in this season we're turning that on its head and talking team by team we've had a number of collectors awesome team collectors come on the podcast to talk all about collector driven and community focused content and this this week i'm super excited to be joined by none other than isaac he goes by istockgriz on instagram and other places as well and he's gonna be repping the la sparks this episode so i'm super excited to get into it hell yeah stand up he's showing off the jersey i'm super excited to get into this episode isaac for people that may not be familiar with you do you mind introducing yourself saying a couple words about who you are and what you do sure yeah so like a little mini origin story is okay yeah okay let's go so i'm isaac stock i was born and raised in memphis tennessee so hence the istock grizz the memphis grizzlies when i'm not doing sports cards i actually run a scrap metal recycling business that is based in memphis thankfully i don't have to go into town as often and i joke that while that's my career my full time job that i spend about forty hours a week on i probably spend about sixty plus hours a week on my hobby right or side business with cards so i grew up so the the memphis grizzlies didn't come to memphis until about two thousand and one so i grew up i don't wanna say like a confused fan but it was in the heart of the you know kobe and michael jordan era i actually it's a little closer to you i grew up a detroit pistons fan at first with the bad boys then ended up becoming a miami heat fan because that's where my grandma lived it's the only place we ever went on vacation so i kinda followed alonzo mourning around and all that to say once the grizzlies came to town we had my family we had season tickets they were still playing in the memphis pyramid at that time which the pyramid has now become it's actually and memphis doesn't have much it has graceland you know elvis' home and then it has the pyramid which is now i think the largest bass pro shop in the world so wow wow and they they moved they just moved the grizzlies just right down the street to the the fedex forum where they still play now so yeah so grew up in memphis you know it's gonna sound weird but a lot of people like don't make it out and i don't even necessarily mean that in a bad way like memphis is just a really cozy right homey place but so it wasn't the first i was the first in my family to ever go to any like post high school academic endeavors so got a full ride academic to university of arizona so that's why you'll also see i have some arizona wildcats we see we say btfd yep bear the f down there it is arizona wildcats yep and then short moved back to memphis after school and then shortly after that moved out to southern california where i used to joke that i fell in love with the the yoga and the avocados out here but it's kinda true and so glad that i did move out here met my now wife we actually so i've actually just got officially married this week congrats a lot a lot of friends and family are kinda confused because we've been saying husband and wife for like three years now but surprise it's official and here we are so should i jump into how cards ties in with that yeah for sure let's get into the cards i'm i'm super excited to hear about kind of all these different lanes and how they converge because i'm hearing memphis i'm hearing arizona i'm hearing california i'm hearing a business like do you mind kind of like unpacking where the sparks fit in this kind of fabrics so i've been as you can say i i named what like almost like half the nba that i followed throughout my career i will say i do remember the inaugural season of the wnba it was especially cool for those that don't know memphis is just a basketball city like i'm like i'm no lie like when the memphis grizzlies are good which happens like once in a blue moon the crime rate is lower in memphis like it's that important it's like sunshine basketball is like sunshine to the city of memphis so all that to say while there was never a wnba team there i just remember i was at sports camp at the memphis jewish community center and the director at the time kathy thompson she was she actually like whatever it was tried out you know like hey i'm gonna you know go make it to the wnba and it was like a big deal around town i don't i mean she ended up not making it but it was a cool thing that you know hey like women's professional basketball is like actually happening right so you know admittedly i didn't track it year for year up until i don't think i'm alone in this up until caitlin the caitlin clark infamous not title run but her when when she was in her march madness run yeah right i wanna say it was the same year as angel yep my wife and i got completely obsessed and so we started watching every game and i wanna say wnba league pass is still fairly new but we we got on to i mean they have a lot of i could do a whole podcast on my like what wnba league pass needs to do to just be better literally but we started watching every game and so with having so the la sparks are what about a forty five minute drive away from our house here in costa mesa so we're right here smack dab almost equidistant right in the middle of la county and san diego county and we're such home bodies not saying we got into wmba just to have something to do but it really is like i'd say ninety percent of the time we go out it's to a sparks game love it la yeah and so this is only our second season having season tickets and you know having the perks of like being able to like go meet the players and they do like signings at a bookstore up up in la but i guess all that to say as as we were you know caitlin was all the rage and she gave all this attention to the hobby and i i swore like i i you know growing up a grizzlies fan we're it's not like we're good enough to be rivals with the lakers but i kind of like swore to myself i was like the purple and gold were never gonna really be for me okay yeah i like i'm very much diehard sparks you know as long as the team is here that's my team never lakers but i started to to nerd out on the history of the wnba so forgive me i don't remember exactly where lisa leslie stands at all time blocks high up there high up there she's way up there she's way up there but i do you know but for example okay like two of the great arguably the greatest players in wnba history having candace parker who's just now being inducted to the hall of fame and then neko gumuke who's still playing having both of them in the top ten all time scoring you know having you know having the the banners and of course now i'm like blanking on how many titles we have but that's something as a grizzlies fan you never saw that like the right right had a title and yeah just like having i don't know i it's it's weird to say but the environment is just so uplifting and like that's why we're losing like i can only imagine how good it's gonna be once we're like a winning team one hundred percent one hundred percent this is quite funny to me because we had another guest on this season who is also from memphis and felt the same exact way he's a aces fan and was like this is like yeah night and day between my memphis fandom which i still love the grizzlies but rooting for like a dynasty like the aces versus what's going on in memphis is very different so to hear from two different memphis folks all about wnba i mean we're really we're really cornering the memphis market right now i'm kind of in shock yeah big fans and and i well i listen to the podcast so i'm i'm i obviously have more to go back and listen to i'd be surprised if we don't know each other because that's how much of a big small town memphis is and good for that yeah one hundred percent yeah yeah the aces you know but anyways both of you made your way kind of to the west coast and i before we kind of get into more about your sparks fandom the players that you like the players that you collect i want to zoom out a little bit and i want to ask you a question that i've asked every guest this season which is we're talking all about women's sports cards which is something that in the hobby is consistently undervalued and underappreciated and to you i guess i want to zoom out away from the cards and maybe layer the cards on but what does kind of being a fan of women's sports mean to you more more generally and how do you show that through your card collecting yeah wow that's a great question you know i feel like there's still so much progress i don't wanna discredit the progress that's been made as you know like leading up to this season for example even women getting you know even remotely fair compensation not even fair to compare it to the men's right i guess because hey they're what sixty seventy five i forget years in you know this is only year thirty for the wnba but getting that collective bargaining agreement signed i don't care that it was right before the season the fact that it got done yeah and just to see that and not just saying because you know whether you're male female whatever it is just supporting women who you know looking back it's like so many so many young i think about so many young women that are gonna have an opportunity now they didn't have before one hundred percent not not just in the wnba but i mean you know professional sports in general like i know like even when i was at u of a at arizona like the women's softball team they've always been a really big deal and so i'm not saying that like okay now that they're the wnba is gaining traction that who knows wait maybe their you know women's professional baseball will pick up and all that yeah you know women's soccer i don't know in general it feels good not just because my my wife and i we have you know what's not considered the traditional situation where you know we both have career you know jobs where we earn a salary and income to the household but she's the primary breadwinner and you know the goal for me is to be the the stay at home dad in training forgive me i feel like it's such a big you're right it's such a big such a big deal right i forget that it is bigger than sports sometimes one hundred percent i think we all do sometimes and i think that i think that finding a community of people through this podcast or through collecting cards or selling cards you find people that understand that and show that respect through card collecting so i hear what you say and i completely agree that you know to me when when i think about throwing that question at guests i'm always like this is a big question like this is not like an easy question to answer it takes like food like thought and when i think about it i agree with you i think there's this whole point about just like challenging the norm today and you know setting the standard for the future and having an inclusive place and you touched on all those things with your answers so i think that's a great a great way to kind of like kick off this this episode i want to get into something that's a little bit more specific to you which is this first segment that i put together talking all about inventory versus personal collecting the way that i know you isaac is through the selling sides of things i feel like we've crossed paths on discord i definitely follow you on ebay and have seen cards put up for sale on there definitely on instagram and i wanna talk about kind of your philosophy of buying and selling cards and starting with that how do you kind of think about that from a let's talk like wnba specific how do you kind of think about selling versus pc ing cards today so in theory right like i'm not saying this is what happens but in theory i don't buy anything that i am not okay holding on to long term what do you mean by long term just indefinitely so my goal like when when i buy something my intention especially with wnba i don't wanna think about all the ones that i've sold that i wish i could have back like i'll i'll get i'll get granular on that in a bit because there there's a handful yeah i don't buy anything that i would it be okay hold holding indefinitely got it right and what kinda like whether yeah what kind of go ahead sorry no no go ahead you're good i was gonna ask you what kind of makes a card fit that mold of something that you're willing to hold indefinitely is it the actual aspects of the card itself i'm thinking like serial numbering a certain color a team or is it more like players and value what what's kind of the rules that you have definitely player okay like it's hundred percent like i would say the foundation of it is the player you know i have an addictive personality i get addicted to all kinds of things i don't wanna say i get addicted to or like i don't let's say addicted sounds better than obsessed with wnba players but like for example last year pretty sure she was a rookie last year if it wasn't two year two years ago rekia jackson yeah and just with her it was it didn't really matter if it was serial numbered i mean yes like aesthetically i mean i also think she makes cards look nice she does because she is an athlete like it yes through and through athlete yeah one hundred percent so so it starts with the player and then yes i would say serial number you know specifically i'd say anything you know fifty or less you know as as i we were preparing for this episode i was realizing how much of an opportunity there is for like somebody please come in and compete with panini because there's just like not that much product and so a lot of these players have so few cards out and so let's say for example like right now candace parker i'm like kicking myself for you know not getting on it sooner i tried not to have the herd mentality and so of course now that she's getting inducted into the hall of fame everybody's like get in this parker and i'm like yes and so part of me is like wants to pull back i try to not just go with the group think mentality all the time which is hard to do it's easier said than done like you said this is all done in theory but in practice sometimes a card comes out or a headline comes out or a game really moves you like sometimes i'll watch a player or even just like highlights and i'm like man i gotta go get so many of those cards so yeah and i kind of want to touch on when we think about the cards that you're talking about we're kind of going cross generation here the two that you mentioned is rekia jackson and candace parker those players i don't think ever played together at least not on the same like time in the league you're buying cards that are ranging from super ultra modern we're talking like caitlin clark onward but you're also buying stuff i feel like i see in your collection that are paper cards from like early two thousands do you kinda have a rule on that or are you just picking up and buying what you think is cool both i was gonna say i end up the reason that i end up selling so much is because i see and like so much and so admittedly i had started selling off some of my pc to save up for just keeping it real for fertility treatments for myself and my wife and so i forget when i get when i'm being hard on myself you know on some cards that i've let go the fact i'm selling them to people that i know share a similar passion as i do in the hobby not saying we can always control that right like i'm not gonna be like okay i'm i'll only sell this to you if you promise but it makes it easier it makes it easier but but i was like okay i know this is going to a home of someone who's just like gonna you know put this on their shelf and and really enjoy it so all that to say of course while you know what's in our face is mostly the ultra modern and i do love the aesthetics of that you know we were talking briefly before the show like you saw kiki kaboom today yeah i love those i don't actually gravitate though towards the kabooms the downtowns and the case hits as much not just because i feel like i got a little crazy with them and had like ten each of like the whatever the nikka mule rakia angel cameron brink thankfully it didn't go crazy and try to buy up all the the caitlins in that one but just trying to like look back and see what's out there like i feel like there's a lot of you know in a way i i feel like i'm trying to mirror what's happening in other professional sports so right now i know this is about wnba but where my logic's logic's coming from and michael jordan and kobe bryant are having a moment right moment yeah like they're up they're up and they're propelling the men's basketball market just like to the moon basically and so now so it's you know kobe mj my generation the younger generation it looks like it's gonna be lebron and steph curry and then okay some people myself included are getting priced out to be able to afford some of the mj and kobe so now those next guys are getting a boost then this is like only happened really in the past like six weeks it started now shaq is finally getting the attention he deserves and kevin garnett i'm sure he's been big huge yeah already in minnesota but he's getting the universal attention that i think he deserves dirk nowitzki so all that to say i'm like okay wnba you know i'm talking about nneka loma kei and candace parker you know being in the top ten scoring all time you know it's cool like even nineteen ninety seven i wanna say the rebecca lobo you know rookie is even a psa ten is extremely cheap it's it's under a hundred dollars and it's a super low pop card so i'm trying to i'm trying to not do the thing that i traditionally do and just buy up like every single thing i see that looks nice trying to be a little more intentional and picky but i also i mean i hope but i also believe that people will actually catch on and start giving respect to the the goats one hundred percent i i really like the way that you kinda made the parallel between the nba and this concept of these really generational players that you're talking about like michael jordan kobe bryant massive names who've been respected for years but maybe didn't have that price premium that we expected them to have and kind of creating this waterfall effect of somebody maybe is now priced out so they're gonna go to the next era then they're they're getting a price out of that they're gonna go to the next era to me i think it's really a great point by you i think you're alluding to the fact that maybe caitlin clark is acting at least as a relative really really high chase in terms of price like we are there are a lot of people that cannot afford caitlin clark's best cards i can't afford her best cards they're crazy but maybe you can you can chase asia wilson you know and it's a little weird the scales are a little different in the wnba because asia wilson has ten times the resume as caitlin clark but her prices are ten times less so it's almost like this this waterfall effect that you're you're speaking to in the nba you'd expect to happen in the wnba i'd be curious to see how it goes because at some point i think with the growth of the wnba we're gonna see those similar market effects at some point hopefully come over to the wnba so i like that i like that point a lot yeah totally i hope this is a if we end up having to edit i didn't give the origins of how sports cards actually became relevant in my life i feel like it'll give yeah i feel like it'll give more context yeah go for it not just saying because i was like a young hustler but i got in a car so i was about ten so this is nineteen ninety five like the peak of jordan and like right before kobe's rookie year my dad who's no longer with us we used to go to sports card shows for me like local shows at this little hotel in memphis it's surprising like at the time it was really popular right like really busy a lot of action we would go to sports card shows for me and we'd go to gun shows for my dad and so great that's what got yeah you know like i'm not like a huge you know like firearms person but like you know we would do one to appease the other and you know we were really close so he gets credit for getting me into the hobby so from nineteen ninety five to ninety eight before i started high school i mean i was on ebay even back then selling not you know sports cards but also you know beanie babies cds all of it and it was a huge part of my childhood i started high school you know was really serious about academics and sports you know played soccer baseball stopped getting taller so didn't actually play high school basketball you know played at the memphis jcc men's league ran cross country all that but the the sports cars got put in bins that's actually one of the bins from my like childhood like it was literally under my under my bed in twenty twenty when i ended up renovating the house i grew up in and then lo and behold i found all of these cards so that's pretty sweet that adds a lot of context to kinda the way that you're talking about you know having a business the way that you think about the market these kinds of things how would you categorize kind of how things have changed since when you first reentered the hobby after finding that kind of like box of cards how how did things change from a collecting perspective for you man you know it's funny because you know when you find a box like that you're not thinking okay i paid this right so i have to sell it for this it was almost like i wouldn't consider myself a lucky person like i don't rip packs or boxes i've never actually i've entered one break because i was doing a buddy a favor and it ended up being okay it was actually a wnba break well let it have a pass we'll let you have a pass and i ended up winning like it was random team i ended up getting the fever and i ended up getting you know some pretty cool sophie cunningham and caitlin cards anyway all that said i don't rip i joke that i'm cursed when it comes to luck ripping so i i intention it's another reason i intentionally i seek out singles and buy what i seek right but how it's changed since i found those cards is now i'm trying to do a better job of when i get something putting it away and just i need it to be out of sight you know they say out of sight out of mind because i know that just my selling mentality like if i see something in front of me there's a good chance i'm going to advertise it like even if i don't you know i don't wanna say sadly but like many cards i've just been i've put on instagram just to show off i mean it's a cool thing about where we are as a hobby it's that many people are like hey that's amazing card like you know what'll it take for you to part with that so not saying i'm gonna like the i don't think the answer is like hiding my collection from people i think it's just being a little more intentional not the worst idea but being a little more intentional about like hey i don't have a price you know like yeah like that and i'm really sticking to that i'm i'm trying to like when i'm like looking online or bidding on something it's like cool like if i buy this i'm not worried about the last comp right you know everyone plays that game it's like hey can you be you know at comps this percent that percent i am a huge proponent of cool the comp is a great barometer the comps are a great barometer you know i believe in card ladder i know people complain it's twenty dollars a month but you know what it only shows confirmed sales right it saves you a lot of money auction house yeah yeah exactly and so i think that's a great rule of thumb but i have i support people paying for something that you want that you're not you can't just like hey i can't just go get this card anytime pay over comp gladly you know hopefully both parties are happy that's an ideal outcome for me i do love that when it happens i feel like it happens a good amount of time in in my deals and yeah just don't be tied to that don't be tied to that comp think of it as you know hey i just this player is remarkable i wanna invest in them right like i don't have the type of i don't have the type of capital to invest in an actual wnba franchise so it's like in a way i'm like investing in that player yeah but little micro investment one hundred percent i i understand what you're saying and i think it's interesting that you touch on this concept of i don't know not not hiding your cards but being like tucking them away maybe keeping them a little bit more private and i think that that's a key kind of principle of a lot of wnba collecting these days is that some of those big cards especially high value cards are tucked away and you can't find them and i want to talk to you a little bit about this because i know a lot of the cards at least that i've seen from you are what i would consider high end cards they're really nice quality they command a good premium in the market they're you know when i when i see the cards that you're posting they're nice they're not just like things you can find sitting around you're obviously looking for them i kind of want to ask you about your approach when you're getting into the cards that i'm talking i don't know however you want to define high end maybe that's my first question is how would you define it and when did you kind of start making that next step up because a lot of people in the wnba community at least from what i've found are operating in this ten dollars to two hundred dollars range that's kind of the sweet spot the cards that you've got they're they're not ten dollars to two hundred dollars maybe some of them are but they're they're more than that so what's that process like for you you know it's funny because i don't i guess i don't view my collection that way and so i swear i'm not trying to be because i mean my collection to some people would be you know a blip on the radar that's one thing i've learned about this hobby is it's all relative right for sure but high end like usually if someone's like hey are you buying i will generally say anything fifty plus is per per single is what i'm looking at but there's not necessarily a limit so like even this morning i bought a candace parker single raw first year of prism the twenty twenty wnba prism just a red out of two seventy five it was the only candace parker number card on fanatics collect which i guess i'm whatever i'll i'll give away my secrets today because that's we'll reward people for tuning in so right right right like i don't actually i don't think fanatics is like a secret to anybody but you can find some hidden gems on there yeah so i didn't even barter and it was actually end up being from burbank sports cards which is funny because they're like you know rock well in a rock skip and a jump for me there i mean it definitely would rather have them mail it for five bucks than drive an hour and a half each way that's a fun like not ideal part of southern california but it's cool because i'm like oh i'm supporting the home you know my my lcs at the same time i forgot the question no it's okay we're talking mostly about like higher end cards so you talked about the scanning clock i'm assuming is not like a five hundred dollar card but you've got no big cards when did you kinda make that yeah that jump yeah great question so caitlin clark when her i guess twenty twenty four panini prizm and all of its parallels draw came out mhmm and one tip i will give to people if you're especially if you're newer to collecting i i i get so zoomed in i forget sometimes i will tell people who are new to collecting and i have to remind myself right when a product comes out i'm not saying it's the highest price that it's going to be but yes like seek out you know the player the cars that you want right like especially if it's something that you're like okay this is numbered out of twenty five let's say twenty five or less right like i don't think you can go wrong there but if not give it a couple weeks to wait on the height to cool down because i see a lot of people myself included get stuck on the hype right so you don't wanna you don't wanna necessarily jump on something right when it comes out but when caitlin and so the parallels there's the there's the pulsar of hers out of four ninety nine i wanna say number twenty two is the you know she's posing like the number one pick and then the number one forty five is the action shot right and so for those who aren't familiar it's pretty cool i at least twenty twenty four prism panini prism started doing that so every rookie has the you know traditional one basically like their draft pick of them standing and then they have the action shot i forget which one is considered the variation but they're different was a debate in w cards i think a lot because the the portrait photo comes first in the checklist which typically indicates like a true but i think most people would consider the shooting like the in game action photo to be her true ricky card despite being further in the checklist a hundred percent and the market i think further supports what you said right so it's actually it's gaining some distance but the action shot will usually bring a premium like sometimes double sometimes triple the other which i don't know that that makes sense long term so i think i have i have an equal amount of and those are cards i'm glad that i've hid for myself most of them are raw but i have you know fifteen or twenty of a mixture of her the pulsars out of four ninety nine which sounds like a pretty high numbered card but okay if we're talking caitlin clark and just one more time paralleling the nba right of victor of victor wimbinyama who wimby's great but i guess you could argue that he's not even necessarily even close to as impactful to the nba as caitlin is to the w his rookie at a four ninety nine raw you know might go for mean at one point they were going like fifteen k yeah and k and caitlin's raw i don't know you know it's like it's like four hundred dollars so i think that wasn't necessarily my logic like in hindsight i'm like that's how i'm justifying the investment but at the time it was just like you know the caitlin like you know the caitlin clark effect what they call it so yeah the pulsar also the the prism so the red prism color match in both the action shot and the rookie pose and then the blue pulsar blue prism like yes do i think there's like it's funny on one hand i was complaining that there's not enough cards of certain players but on the other hand i think that within a set there's a few i'm not i don't know that we necessarily need this many parallels like i agree like pulsar and blue prism are each you know out of one ninety nine and then red pulse pulsar red prism are out of two ninety nine not just because it's a lot to keep up with but my hope is that we moving forward i don't wanna dilute yeah you know the integrity of of the product but yeah caitlin rookie year i kinda just started getting obsessed with i never i never even looked at it as like okay i'm transitioning to what we consider higher end cards i've just kept trying to keep the same mentality of cool like yes like yes sometimes i'm checking with my wife before i make these investments thankfully not as often anymore because we just we have a level of of trust and like when we first met long story like she met me and i had just bought a boutique fitness gym i was kind of in a midlife crisis okay and all that to say sorry for what is relevant to the readers there was some question about my decision making and just my like reactive spending so all that to say you could see how combining that with sports cards could be a recipe for disaster so i think i mean i don't think i'm delusional here but i think we've reeled that in okay kinda just sitting yeah sitting on those caitlin's but then starting to see other players yeah there's there's some that are still undervalued but you know angel reese had a moment there and hopefully she'll go back up you know paige becker's now asia i still think asia wilson's even her modern autographs i think are criminally undervalued yeah you can get them for like fifty bucks like you can get an asia auto for fifty dollars it doesn't make any sense yeah i i agree i'm curious if you don't mind indulging me here i wanna ask you kind of about we're talking about market we're talking about landscape of checklists the cards that are out there you're operating in the wnba space you're operating in the nba space you talked and touched on this propelling effect that michael jordan and kobe bryant are having on the hobby i think we're all seeing all this big new money however you want to categorize that whether that's from pe firms that are you know creating quote unquote portfolios of cards or big corporations coming in and you know making bids on cards or being involved in the hobby in some way from your perspective from the buying selling and collecting perspective what are you kind of seeing from this high end market of what people are buying and and to your point about i don't know spending habits and so on and so forth would you categorize this new wave of money as as smart as a smart investment to you or how do you feel about the overall landscape right now overall i mean because of my you know obsession and involvement i love it especially through the lens of a seller right as a buyer you you know i will say like i check the auction houses weekly so thursday nights it's golden and alt auctions ending then sunday nights it's fanatics weekly ending and yeah there are a lot of cards that three years ago you know touching on what you asked about how how it's changed three years ago i would have been in some of these cards like even the bigger caitlin's and paige beckers you know towards the end i'm getting priced out and i'm almost like watching for fun and excitement like for example i had some friends it was a it was a paige becker's gold vinyl select so right so a tier below prism right it goes like prism select like don russ i think it's fair to say kind of i agree i agree yeah paige becker's gold vinyl select one of one you know they did they pulled it on their whatnot channel they submitted it to psa or excuse me they sent it to golden who submitted it to psa got a psa ten they ran it on golden the thing went for forty eight k and they were disappointed and i i hope i hope they listen to this podcast too they're really good friends of mine and i'm not saying that they're they're not wrong because another the page prism like three months before went for like i think a hundred and fifteen k and this is not like this isn't there's not even a no autograph on the car right just a one of one so on one hand i think it's remarkable i'm not saying that those are necessarily poor investments but they're not where i'm not quite looking to dump that much capital into any guarantee yeah you know what i mean and it's it's no knock on my belief in the wnba and like it continuing to grow it's just a lot so i think i i think yeah so i like i like staying more in the i'd say the two fifty to five k range right and i feel like you have a lot more i don't know because you could argue on one hand those higher cards you have a chance for it to multiply in value but i just feel like there are a lot safer plays it's a lot more fun and interesting plays in the two fifty to to five k range so for sure especially as like i would consider myself a risk averse person and that the hobby is kind of my escape to let myself go a little loose on risk like once in a while but i'm not taking a fucking forty k risk at any point like that is just not happening you know what i mean it's a little bit more fun to play like you said in that two fifty to five ks range which is a healthy amount of risk to put into a player that you that you don't know and that doesn't know you so i completely agree before we kind of round out and i want to get into your sparks fandom a little more i have kind of a big picture question in five years if you were to think about where the wnba market is where do you think it sets do you think we're in the same situation talking about how asia is undervalued and maybe other players are overvalued do you think people are gonna start to catch up no i think i think people are catching that and real quick because i i didn't touch on it players that i think are underpriced i'll just be quick through it that i think so in five years this this kinda tie together i think nafiza collier period oh my word yeah sonya citroen yep dominique malonga kelsey mitchell shakira austin like not just because of the all star snub speak on it on my word she i will say i got i got was happy that i finally like this week like all the shakira austin that i had just like started getting scooped up from my store like i had very fairly priced but i was like come on i was almost like putting it out there like come on people like show her some love it's funny you say that i do actually know her personally so okay sure ironic like so i i owned a boutique fitness gym for a couple years and it's called f forty five training like they're all over the place but i owned one in germantown tennessee she was at school at ole miss in oxford mississippi which is like a thirty minute drive and so she actually came and worked out at my gym like oh like a handful of times like about ten times but she's like the i know she i know she looks like super intimidating on the course she is the nicest person so i maybe do have a little bias there but anyway i'm just she's a dog she's just i i'm finding myself more often like regularly just saying wow some of the things that she does around the basket that in five years i would hope that those type players are getting the recognition that they deserve as well as some of the the goats i do think people will catch up with asia like even if she doesn't win the next five mvps like she might win a few of them yeah you know i hope she like gives other people like olivia miles or even even kelsey mitchell a chance at mvp or paige beckers you know there's it's cool that there's no lack of names right that i could say that are actual people who could be the face of this league so that's a really cool place to be in but i also hope and believe that the players like lisa leslie dawn staley i mean good lord diana taurasi is so underappreciated in the hobby elena i never said her name right edd elena del don del don get the proper respect but i hope that people don't catch up too soon because i'm trying to stockpile those players so i understand completely that's kind of this paradox of talking about cards it's like do i wanna talk so much about these players i think are so undervalued while i'm simultaneously trying to scoop them up at their undervalued i it's a tough situation but right now you can scoop up all those players for really affordable prices so i think it's a good shout i like some of those names i like the mix too of of young and maybe a little bit more legendary players for sure alright should we get into a little bit more sparks here izaik okay so we have to talk about the sparks history they have three championships they won in two thousand and one two thousand and two that's near the beginning of the league and more recently in twenty sixteen they have names that you've mentioned like lisa leslie candace parker nneka ogumike and parker's jersey recently went up into the rafters at the la sparks arena and you sit in that arena like you said for most games you're season ticket holder what's kind of that like and how has that kind of maybe amplified your fandom for the sparks you know we talked a little bit touched on it a little bit earlier but the inclusion factor just i don't know what it is about because i i went there for lakers games in the past and it was just not my vibe like lakers games people kinda like showing up at halftime i would just say it was a weird energy that is it's funny because it's the same you would not even be able to tell that it's the same arena i still call it staples center but the artist formerly known as staples the crypto dot com it is such a magical just inclusive environment and like i joked but like you know we're losing a lot and still like even the home opener for example the las vegas aces came in whooped our asses by like thirty something and at the end of the game myself included like twenty fans are just standing there and nneka is just coming like shaking everybody's hands so calm we didn't even care about the game it was like thank you so much for coming back and she was generally just like thank you you know i'm happy to be here so it's just a really cool like yes we want our team to win but it's almost like a celebrating professional women's sports every time we're there i hope that's not just a coping mechanism for losing but like i truly believe that that is right no it's like because my wife even said she's like i'm not a competitive person but i also don't think i'm a good loser like you know i like to excel in the things that i do i would i would hope most people would feel that way but she's she made a good point she's like okay even if we strip the team down and it was no players that you knew it's like we're playing against all of these amazing athletes and teams and coaches you know like we appreciate it down to even like the assistant coaching staff right so being there and you're right and candace parker you know she does she was at she wasn't there just for her ceremony like she goes to she's been to probably at least five home games this year to be that close to people that have had that much influence on you know the wnba but also just like you know professional sports as a whole uh-huh you know magic johnson showing up a lot of nba players you know kevin durant comes to a good amount of games it's just a really really cool environment and i grew up going to you know memphis grizzlies games i don't know i can't explain why it's so different but i try to yeah i i think it's interesting because i i have asked i think i've tried to ask every collector i've had on and i try to talk to people here in person about this but the atmosphere of a wnba game if there's anybody listening who hasn't been and they consider themselves a wnba card collector you gotta get in the building man it is a different vibe like you're saying than other sports and other entertainment and leagues it just feels a little bit more i feel closer to it like it feels more accessible it feels more inclusive it feels like the players genuinely thank you for for being there and for like taking time to go to the game and i think that means a lot you know you and i we're sitting here talking about pieces of cardboard with players on them we're about as like nerdy as you can get about cards let alone being in the stadium with them to have that experience i think the wnba does a good job cultivating that unique kind of feeling that is so difficult to put into words because it just feels different so i agree with you yeah i wanna i wanna ask you a tough question and i'm gonna put you on spot here which is a question that i've asked two questions i've asked every person which is the first one is if you had to choose three words to try to describe the identity of the la sparks what would they be and why please send help that's sorry that's okay that's the joking answer but then that's the first thing that comes to mind the identity oh of the la sparks as we currently stand or historically just encompassing including today past and present i would say pride we're a very proud franchise and like it has changed actually that's that i will say had it's felt more that way since we had since we brought you know madam president nneka agua mackay back and she was actually i believe on that two thousand sixteen title team i will say kind of going in reverse here not trying to like be drinking the haterade or hate on kelsey plum but like it is a little it's actually very frustrating to be you know we were one game away from making the playoffs last year to go from that lose two of our key two three actually four of our key players partly because we didn't touch on this but the expansion draft makes it really hard to build a team when you can only retain is it five or six players yeah five or six yeah oh my gosh it's so hard so yes we did lose sarah ashley barker we did lose julie allemon to the expansion draft which tough because sa barker is actually was my is my is my wife's favorite player so that was tough too good too yeah she's and she's just like a good person you know yeah so losing her was tough and then losing azaray for nothing after we had retained her and then trading rekia jackson for no knock on i i i respect and i admire ariel atkins as a player and as a person but trading her straight up for rickya jackson i feel that we first it didn't make sense now i'm hearing in hindsight that rickya like didn't wanna leave at the time people said she had requested the trade and it seems like that was just something that was thrown out there to like up to six people yeah yeah she was talking about missing la recently yeah i bet i i feel like rakia is like the ultimate la girl like i i don't know why she wouldn't wanna play there it doesn't make any sense yeah well and there's this whole like one for one like you know candace was like the goat who went to university of tennessee and then rakia was like you know the next generation from tennessee so to have that parallel with the sparks yeah actually it's funny because she could totally have that with the sky too because candace won a title there yeah maybe she's just doing that maybe she's just doing that the sky yeah anyway forget them no all that to say it it's frustrating to move lose all those pieces that i just talked about and then to have kelsey plum say hey i'm gonna bring a title here and then i don't know what could have happened behind the scenes in three months yeah to go from yes i think she was delusional in saying that we were title contenders with the moves that we made but separately you know it's i thought you know right like my initial reaction when the trade happened i was actually at the national sports collectors convention in chicago it was around a bunch of other w fans which that was actually really cool my first time going to the national and realizing that like there's many of us who were right supporting the w my initial reaction was to feel abandoned but like a couple hours later i actually was able to look at the big picture and was pretty happy with the trade so okay all that to say so i will answer your question so pride okay i mean the please send help i think could've been enough it works yeah please please like four words please please send out belief so i do i actually have belief in this front office as much as people hate on her i have belief in our coach i believe in our assistant coaches i've seen what we're capable of i don't know if you saw this but we scored forty points in the fourth quarter against crazy the other night yeah i don't know why but we we must have a record for like the most amount of games in a row like not trying in the first half and then just looking like looking like a title contending team in the second half and come coming back sadly just enough to not win but but i'll say class because you know what we like yes every player in this league has moments where they're you know having words with the ref but i love seeing our team and i think it's it's yes it's i've said her name so many times but it stems mecca from mecca yeah you already know that trickle down effect it's like we we're setting the tone for like you're not gonna come here you know it's funny la you know hollywood all the glitz and glamour we're not in the spotlight in the wnba you know you hear about sophie do you hear about caitlin you hear about well they get most of the attention right now yeah they do about you know the liberty right which i get it like big city but i think that's cool so classy and you know even after a hard foul like we're not afraid to go help the other team up kinda thing those little things might sound silly but it creates the identity of a franchise and and i think you are crediting the correct person with madame president i think you've seen that on every team that she's been on she just has this sort of like magical powerful essence that flows through the team in my opinion i saw her in person and i was like wow that might be like i feel like i'm in the presence of like a a wnba god like how much she's done for the league not only on the court where she's criminally underrated but off the court making strides as well like you talked about the cba like a lot of that is nneka's like groundwork that she's doing and you can feel it pulsate in the stadium i can imagine so i like the three words you went with i'm gonna hit you with another question here if you had to pick the sparks mount rushmore so four faces that you can carve into the mountain for la sparks who are you picking as like best i mean easy but i'm so biased so it's gonna be a little vanilla answer here but lisa leslie k easy nneka yep candace yep that's gonna sound crazy but maybe this will manifest her coming back oh putting up there i'm and i know she tore the acl but like i'm that high on rekia jackson i do not think you are the only one we've had now i think you're the third or fourth guest this season who is a i would consider hardcore rekia believer i am on record in this podcast like first season this podcast while rekia was still like very early in her career saying that i thought he was the most wnba ready draft prospect to come out of you know the sec conference in a long time like she is the real deal i i don't know how how sparks fans are gonna feel about her being on mount rushmore but i do think the sparks fans miss her and like you said if it can if this can serve as a sort of manifestation for you guys that would be great but i'm not gonna hate on that i one hundred percent agree with the first three rakeya that's that's a good pick for you personally for sure there we go awesome well i have another rapid fire question before we get into my favorite segment which is this concept of the disrespect index you touched on a few of these players at least i think you touched on a few of them before when you're talking about in the next five years so and so is gonna be undervalued still or something like that but the disrespect index is something that i failed to quantify and i can only explain which is this concept that somebody's playing super well on the court like really well like just great player reliable etc etc putting up the numbers but yet the market refuses to accept this and reflect it in terms of prices if you had to pick one la spark that would score the highest on the disrespect index who are you choosing oh i thought you were gonna say player overall which i will say i know you didn't ask this but kelsey mentioned like okay oh my word on the sparks i'm biased because ray burrell is my second she she was my next pick on the way too early but i don't care mount rushmore so i think she under kia should have their own mountain and ray burrell why why ray burrell you think she's a good player i don't know that we're utilizing her to the best of her ability so i can't say that it's people's fault for not keeping up with her but also her she doesn't have much cardboard out there right so i'm surprised that like it's cool to see that like some people are catching up so for example i i think she's still she's not you know skyrocketing like she was but like earlier on in the season carla late her market started going bonkers and it was just cool to see like it's cool to me it's cool to see any player in the w get the respect that they deserve but ray burrell you know she's she's definitely in the conversation for most improved in the league not saying on the team she she gives it her all she's just dyed loose balls yeah high energy player you know people i had people complaining that they thought she was a ball hog and my response was look at our team and this is not this is actually this is a knock on kelsey plum she's a phenomenal scorer i love watching her she's not a facilitating point guard and so last year we had julie aleman who is what i consider a traditional point guard burrell was getting like six to i don't know i think she might've averaged nine minutes a game last season so for someone to like i think mentally to stay as focused as she has and now she's finally getting an opportunity to start she started at least two thirds of the games this season you know her scoring is up thirteen points a game her steals are up her assists are up her rebounds are up across the board high percentage three point field goal free throw shooter she may not command you know yeah some people say that she's a complainer like it was kinda funny actually story with ray burrell when we were playing the fever i watched her in front of a ref say like ow ref she's hurting me and even caitlyn just like went there and was like shaking her head you know caitlyn who's known for her like you know head embellishments yeah was just really funny watching ray burrell like basically emotionally manipulate a ref and she ends up getting a call too which is even more funny once again something you only see if you go to the games right or for the most part unless you have like a really big tv i guess which is cool too ray burrell man and you know it's funny i i actually saw in unrivaled the three on three tournament over the summer i saw what even more what she was capable of like just i always say this wrong case in point yes case in point we scored forty points in the fourth quarter against the liberty the other night they had their starters in they weren't not trying ray burrell had twenty points in the quarter it just it's you could say she's streaky but i think that's a a management issue and for as few cards as she has out there in the market yeah yeah getting no love i i agree with the pick i think this question not only lends itself like i said to on the court play and popularity but also to that supply demand dynamic that we have at play in this hobby and rae burrell is one of those people that despite being i don't know i i think people know who rae burrell is and for whatever reason they may know her and yet she doesn't command those prices that maybe somebody that's playing at a similar level at level to her does so that's a good shout especially because we hadn't really talked about her too much so i like the pick isaac i like that pick let's get into my favorite segment each week that we have this episode or the series which is called the personal grail we talk all about one card that best represents your team in wnba fandom and we're gonna talk about somebody that we talked about a lot on this podcast isaac but if you don't mind sharing what the card is why you picked it and kinda like the story behind how you got it sure so i haven't had it for that long so the national sports card convention was i think like a month ago even if that i'm like i'm like still catching up from sleep that from that show it was amazing some friends i'd say oh my gosh probably at least twenty people in the w community that i've done deals with it was our first time meeting in person which that was actually really cool to walk because i don't do any like regular you know social media content i guess you could say like i'm just a an average joe so for a couple people to be like i'm you know storm fan nineteen ninety four or you know what i mean yeah and to be like oh my gosh carson i think and you know and just like meet people in person and then you know who i was was so cool and to have a i think they had a dedicated actual booth at the show like eight tables of just wnba because even when i'm setting up i'm like i have yes i have a whole showcase that's wnba but i also have all other sports mhmm that's because i don't know because that's the last sport but anyway all that to say i had never seen this card first of all yes i did acquire the the elena deldan and then the neca i don't even know how to pronounce it's nemcati it's her actual like birth name nemcati neca it's the two thousand eight mcdonald's high school all american card and the story with these they are i didn't get to touch on this so it's a good time to talk about sticker versus on card yeah they're actual hard signed autographs which like yes i have a lot of sticker autos because the navy only gives us what they give us they do have some on card autographs like i know that there's hope but on card autograph and just seeing nneka in the high school uniform and then now the back of the card like the foreshadowing is crazy so nimkhati's proficiency in math and science will allow her to begin pursuit of a premed degree at stanford you know it's like funny just like seeing the progression it's like oh yeah and that was what like you know six two four it was named two thousand seven texas player of the year and just giving i know i think it's funny to give the scouting report on someone who's become such a legend in the sport had never seen these cards before so before a month ago like i had no idea they even existed couldn't find really comps on them which that to me is always really fun right like trying to come up with it i did end up giving up a grail card that i'm like losing sleep over to get these cards so you know i know this is probably supposed to be a celebratory part no it just shows what is it the the lord giveth and he taketh away i guess one hundred percent but i gave up a candace parker twenty twenty gold prism psa ten i don't know why i didn't just try to whip out cash but it was kind of that thing where the person that my my buddy john i was doing the deal with he was like adamant and he's you know very trustworthy we've done deals together back and forth like for years now he was like that candace is already it's our he's like if i get it from you like i already know it's going to the most dedicated candace parker collector and so in the moment i was just like you know what like i don't need to be selfish right i don't need to hoard all this i want people to be able to you know collect who they love and so just having this one raw like i don't care about you know it doesn't have to be a psa ten it's just like not even that type of thing i will certainly put it away right so out of sight so i'm not tempted to do anything else with it unless i end up framing it right no i think this is a great pick when i asked the guest to send me pictures and really think about this question because i think it gets the juices flowing before a podcast when we record and when this picture showed up of this card i was like damn that's like a that's a that's a basketball card right there like it checks all the boxes you have encard yeah yeah encard auto you got just a beautiful in my opinion iconic design you have iconic mcdonald's which you know represents just how early on you have to be in like to understand how important these cards are it's it's pre rookie pre call like this is pre pre everything this is like first yeah like before the first and to me as we go on in time i think that you know discovering these sets like you said you may have not been familiar with it before you saw it these are the kinds of things that get unearthed and then like you said they stay put away once they're acquired by the right person and i think that this nneka is a perfect fit in your collection to represent kind of like how much she's done for the franchise and the league and also just a sick a sick card objectively so great pick isaac i i loved it and i know you had to give up some good stuff for it but hopefully this one will stay with you for a while and it'll be worth it yeah awesome well this has been a super fun episode talking all about the sparks i love that we got to talk about nneka i feel like neca is one of those players that is not talked about enough not only in the hobby but in women's basketball in general i think we owe a lot to neca i think this episode could be framed sort of as like a neca appreciation just because of the because the jersey yeah show it off that's sick like seriously getting to talk about these players with somebody who appreciates them collects them and has like a real dedication to women's sports cards especially cards that in my opinion are hard to find that are expensive that are cool has been such a blast isaac so for people that don't follow you how can they find you whether it's on instagram or somewhere else that way if they enjoyed kinda hearing what you have to talk about or they wanna look at your cards where where can they find you of course so at istockgriz on instagram same name on my ebay store same name on discord actually i'll follow-up with you if this when this ends up happening i'm working on a wnba cardboard specific discord because i think it's just it's too important for us to not have you know a cohesive avenue right like i'm in like nine different wnba fan groups but anyway at istock grizz on instagram yeah please reach out anytime and i'll keep posting sick cards of all the goodies as i get to for sure well every episode ends the same way with this question and then we'll log off this question is if somebody's listening they're a wnba fan they like wnba cards but they don't have a team they feel lost they say i'm in memphis and i don't know who i'm supposed to be rooting for because there's not a team here can you make your pitch for the la sparks and why you should watch and collect them man look at the banners yeah three yes we may have only you could look at it as you know glass glass half empty we've only won ten percent of the total titles i guess this is your thirty so i've only been twenty nine yeah a little more than one percent three little over ten percent not that it's all about the titles but you know we have a team we're classy right like you're gonna you know win or loss we're going to go out there and play hard and respect ourselves respect the other team it might sound like something a team that loses a lot might say it's like yeah we're not that good but we you know respect ourselves and each other but we yeah we're really we're building something here hey why not you know you can always jump on the bandwagon of a team like the aces that's you know winning titles all the time but the time's right i mean historic you know history shows that at least once every ten years that we're gonna win a title and you know this i will say like no one makes you know perfect decisions hindsight's twenty twenty but this this team cares a lot about putting the right pieces together not just for entertainment but you know also to you know represent to be the faces of the league for sure even if you don't know the names on the back of the jersey like you will know like la sparks like we were one of the first you know eight teams still got basically the same you know logo colors i you know our mascot could probably he's kinda stinky he could probably use a new spork he's kinda smelly but he's a he's a legend so awesome so it sounds like if you want a a winning mentality you want madam president on your team and you wanna stay classy you can join isaac at stock grizz being an la sparks fan thanks again isaac so much for joining the pod everyone thank you for listening and we'll see you next week