A Lacking Leaderboard 🪜
Featuring a Short & Slimy Challenge Corner, Wen North Korea, Player Leaderboards Launch, Locker Room Lotto Packs & More
Good Morning, B&B Squad! Fall is in the air, and the NBA season is just three weeks away!
NBA teams had their Media Day this week, and there was plenty of content around the Twitter water cooler:
Some big Marshawn Lynch ‘I’m just here so I don’t get fined’ vibes from DeAndre Ayton at the Phoenix Suns media day. Yikes!
Lonzo Ball still can’t 'run or jump’ and is undergoing another knee surgery. The Bulls point guard injury curse continues.
Zion Williamson is looking jacked. Is this his year to remind everyone how amazing he is when healthy?
Jimmy Butler has another new look. Dreadlock Jimmy SZN incoming?
Lets get into all the action from the last few days:
Challenge Corner 🪱
The first NBA Top Shot ‘Lockdown’ challenge went active on Monday, with a rare, rookie year Dennis Rodman debut moment up for grabs:
If we had some geolocating for who is completing these challenges, we might get a rare blip out of North Korea:
A reminder: the Lockdown challenges require you to lock your moments for the entire year — navigate to Collection → Leaderboards → Lock Moments to get the ball rolling. Collectors will need to lock 7 out of the following 10 S4 Run It Back moments:
Bill Laimbeer | Adrian Dantley | Ron Harper | Brad Daugherty | Mark Price | Karl Malone | Alex English | Dale Ellis | Fat Lever | Sleepy Floyd
The RIB set saw a nice rise over the weekend into the challenge, with the full 20-moment collection currently sitting at a $2,434 low ask as of this writing:
Elsewhere in the Challenge world, a Spud Webb crafting challenge is live through Thursday — with a mix of Archive moments and dunk contest champions needed:
The Spud challenge will currently run you a tiny $19 to complete. Hopefully you’re not short on Dapper!
In honor of both Webb and Manute Bol getting added to the platform recently, here are a few of my favorite random NBA photos:
But wait, there’s more! Ever asked yourself what a 7’7 person looks like in a swimming pool? Well wonder no more:
Player Leaderboards Launch 📜
Top Shot introduced Player Leaderboards on Tuesday, allowing users to show off their fandom for their favorite hoopers.
Much like Team Leaderboards, collectors will be required to lock up moments from a player for a minimum of one year — and the new feature includes rewards centered around the major NBA award races:
I’m not super jazzed with this roll-out, though I haven’t been a huge Leaderboard grinder on the Team side either. Maybe this wasn’t supposed to be a big feature, but it just feels a bit bland. A few things jump out:
I feel like Player Leaderboards are an awesome opportunity to really narrow down the audience and provide super specific rewards — and the options could be limitless. EX: Top 100 — jersey. Top 5 — autographed basketball. Top 1: Meet and Greet. Obviously this couldn’t be executed for every player, but there are plenty of IRL/merch opportunities that stand out. Moments don’t.
Speaking of moments not standing out — people are clamoring for LESS moments, not more. My favorite player is Jimmy Butler — but do I want to buy a bunch of Jimmy’s for a chance at… Another Jimmy moment? Nah. Think outside the box with rewards!
That being said… Ars0nic (the man with over 1,000 Cody Zeller moments) — your time has come!
The Locker Room Reopens 🎰
Series 1 Lotto Locker Room packs are back this Friday, with 200,000 packs up for grabs at 4 trade tickets a pop.
As in previous Locker Room drops, the odds to snag the elusive S1s are long — with just 6,000 available amongst 600,000 moments (1%).
Despite the steep chances, this is the NFT community — and we have plenty of collectors that love to gamble. Get those recycling bins ready — those LeBron James and Giannis Antetokoumnpo debuts aren’t going to find themselves!
Around The First Mint 🗣
🎧 The Future of Ownership (Feat. Jess Sloss)
What do we, as normal people, actually own in web3? Yes, we own the NFTs, but we SHOULD own the network. Today's guest, Jess Sloss, runs The Seed Club: an incubator for web 3 communities and networks. On today’s show, we discuss what we as participants in this network (and our multiple sub networks) should expect from the space, and what it should expect from us.
🎧 How Premint is Making NFTs Less Painful (Feat. Brenden Mulligan)
🎧 Is NFL All Day the Answer to Sports NFTs? (Feat. Dave Feldman)
Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint
Follow Zach on Twitter at @GhostOfGregOden.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
About The First Mint
The First Mint is a web3 media company. We make. We write. We talk. We listen.