This forum is for broad discussions of collecting. Threads relating to a specific set, person or team should be created on that set, person, or team's page.
From a basketball perspective I remember really enjoying the box of 2007-08 Finest I bought at the time and hoping for some of the different refractor parallels. Looking that up it has 9 different refractors which are at least in sort of logical decreasing print runs (though why 2 different 1/1s...).
I look at something like Prizm now with approx 40 parallels and just would never bother.
I guess a lot of people must like them or Panini wouldn't do it but just seems like such overkill and another attempt to create false rarity/scarcity.
They are definitely pretty to look at in some cases, but trying to collect them all would be exhausting. I would definitely rather that they try to get in some more actual players into the set than more colors.
If you're opening a box to collect a complete set, the parallels would be unbelievably annoying. However, it is a player collectors delight, at least in my opinion. I like the challenge. I've got all of the Aaron Nola colors from 2019-2020 Prizm excluding parallels numbered /10 or fewer. (I even have a few numbered under /10 from this year!)
I like the idea of colored parallels but some sets take it to the extremem. I would be good with a couple of parallels (4-6) plus printing plates. Last July I completed the rainbow for 2013 Chrome Marshawn Lynch. I am skipping the Super and printing plates, but it was still the base plus 13 parallels. That is way too much.
As a player collector I have no real problem with it. Trying fo find them is frusrating have 23 diff colors / parallel sets. My issues is the people that have them think they are worth 5 to 25 times the value of the base card. I'm not talking about the low SN cards.
