Why Have Modern Basketball Cards Tanked In Value?

For a long time, basketball cards have been in retreat. It was not long ago, especially around the pandemic, that NBA cards seemed like the future and baseball cards like a relic of the past.

But baseball cards have rebounded significantly over the last two years and are now easily the most popular sport. Meanwhile, basketball has not only fallen behind baseball but also football. In addition, we are now seeing a decline in the prices of basketball cards.

There is seemingly very little excitement around the start of the NBA season. Despite the massive popularity and value of the 2023-24 Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama cards, all this happens.

But is this a mere bump in the road for basketball cards, or is this a trend? We dig into the numbers and give you the answer to the question, why are basketball cards taking in value?

Grading card numbers

When I reviewed the grading data for September 2024, I was struck by how weak the basketball card numbers were. Granted, the entire grading industry was weak that month, down by 16%.

It may not mean much. But I couldn’t help but notice that in the month leading up to the 2024-25 season, NBA card submissions to PSA were down 4%. Even at this critical juncture, they were below football and baseball.

Basketball Card Prices

I was inspired to write this piece partially by this great video by NEO Cards & Comics. He took a deep dive into some of the main cards outside the oversized Wemby items and compared the off-season sales data with that in the run-up to the opening tip-off.

He looked at Prizm Silver cards at a PSA 10, and this is what he found.

There is minimal gain on any of these cards, even in this period where values traditionally rise. Even the Wemby card is significantly down. That is probably because people are hunting rare parallels and autos.

The only player with a significant increase here is Devin Booker. If you look at the numbers, that is because his Prizm Silver was priced ridiculously low compared to the other superstars. So, that case seems more like the market is adjusting properly than any significant pre-season buzz.

Why are great players down?

The case of Jayson Tatum is an important one. By any measure, 2023-24 was a breakout season for him. That is when he jumped from being an outstanding player to a superstar.

When a player wins their first title, scores nearly 27 points, and takes over 8 rebounds per game at age 26, you expect the market to acknowledge this. Instead, we see a mild retreat in value to an already low price for the card. Something needs to be fixed here.

Even the players who are up a bit, like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, should be somewhere else. He is a sensational talent building a contender out of Oklahoma City, but the market does not care.

Comparing values to other sports

Look at how key Silver Prizm PSA 10 cards perform in football. That is the nearest comparison.

The numbers for NFL cards are manageable. However, they are far more robust than their basketball equivalents. Generally, there are few severe value losses and primarily gains.

Baseball is currently at the end of the season and doesn’t have a precise equivalent. However, the sheer number of submissions shows more interest in the national pastime.

What about vintage?

One way to see if this is a lack of enthusiasm for basketball or a problem with more recent cards is to compare the prices to those of retired players. Let’s look at PSA 10 rookies to see what we can find.

 I also looked at some other vintage cards. They all perform either firmly or very firmly. This isn’t an overall distaste for basketball cards or a lack of interest. It appears to be an issue of ultra-modern cards only. That means we have to look at the characteristics of the most recent cards to understand the problem.

What do these lower prices mean?

The two most submitted basketball players over the last month have been Wemby and Edwards. But they are enjoying no significant increase in price. There needs to be more enthusiasm around basketball cards today. I noticed it months ago but figured introducing official Wemby autos would fix the matter. It did not.

I was one of many to notice this problem months ago. A poster on Reddit wondered about the same thing in January 2024:

“So I recently bought a new Beckett Basketball Card Price Guide issue. I don’t buy them all that often, maybe 3 times a year. The last one I bought was about 6 months ago. I decided to compare the prices of some cards. I noticed that the price of some cards decreased drastically. The rookie cards of guys like Ja Morant, Luka Doncic, and Lamelo Ball decreased by at least 50 percent. Specifically, the 2019-20 Prizm Ja Morant went from 80 dollars to 30. Luka’s Prizm Rookie card was at 300 dollars for 6 months. It is now at 100. Even some key rookies from the mid to late 80s went way down. Scottie Pippen’s rookie card went from 200 down to 40. Even the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan went from 8000 down to 6000. These are just some examples, but many key rookies from the last 35 years went way down in price. Now, I know some people think that Beckett is not as reliable as once, but I believe they pull pricing data from all over the internet. So, does anyone have any thoughts? Is the basketball card market tanking? If so, why?”

Why no one was concerned about basketball card tanking

At the time, no one was particularly concerned. Many felt it was a return to normalcy after the extreme highs of the pandemic market.

And, of course, some were happy to see a return to lower prices, like in this comment: “Far from crashing. It’s just slowly returning to normal. Been doing it for a solid 2 years now. The investor crowd is slithering back to other get-rich-quick schemes, but they’re doing it slowly. I doubt we will go back to pre-2018 prices without a full-on crash, but we should get close. Who knows what Fanatics will do to the hobby? Maybe we crash after that, maybe we get another bump. Hopefully, they tank it. I don’t wanna pay today’s prices for many cards!”

Others felt that the issue was the need for more exciting rookies. One person asked on Blowout Forums, “Basketball seems dead compared to baseball and football, which seem to be thriving. Hobby boxes are being sold for a fraction of Football. The fanatics exclusives for Prizm, Optic, and Select are on the site. Retail is sitting on Target. What’s going on? Basketball seems more popular than it has ever been.”

At that time, the belief was that a lack of exciting rookies was at the root of the problem. One collector answered, “The last couple of rookie classes were just OK; some good players so far, but nobody is being hyped to the moon. Wemby pack lottery chasing will change all that this year. His rookie prices will easily surpass the last two drafts.”

My hot take on why basketball cards are in tanking in value

Basketball remains highly popular, and there is massive excitement around it. There is also no shortage of great young players, with Wemby and Chet Holmgren being the two most notable examples.

Too many influencers have been pumping up the prices unrealistically. There has been so much pump-and-dump excitement around players who have not panned out, like Zion Williamson, Lonzo Ball, Tyler Herro, and Ja Morant.

All that has led people to undervalue truly established greats like Jayson Taytum and Nikola Jokic. It is not a healthy position for the hobby to be in.

Think also of the massive buzz around Flawless. The era when Drake was buying boxes and opening them with Ken Goldin. A new box of Flawless at that point cost about $15,000.

The buzz died after people bought box after overpriced box and pulled very little value. You can get a box of the same product for $3,000.

A special shout-out to Geoff Wilson

People have lost a great deal of money on this stuff. There has been too much manipulation. We have seen various influencers like Geoff Wilson often announce that a different player is the messiah of basketball.

Very rarely have those players panned out. In general, the involvement of all these influencers is designed for clicks rather than helping you.

For example, Geoff released a video in February 2021 about how the market is overheated, and he sells most of his expensive cards. That is legit. There is nothing wrong with that. However, he deleted the video and posted several videos telling his viewers to buy cards.

That continued until May 2021. As you may remember, the market took a significant tumble at that time.

Sports Card Radio watched the clips and compiled a list of the cards he recommended. Over those months, he discussed 35 cards and suggested that viewers buy 28.

According to Sports Card Radio’s calculations, if anyone had bought one copy of each of the recommended items, they would have lost $25,143.

Why what Wilson is doing is terrible

The problem here is not that Geoff Wilson was wrong. Lord knows it is tough to predict the value of cards, injuries, and performance, and the market is also weird.

We have seen great cards from fantastic players sometimes stagnate for some reason. Instead, it is the internal provision of bad advice. There is no excuse for that.

The cards involved included the 2014 Prizm Joel Embiid, which went down $250 over that time. Others were the Prizm rookie cards for Jayson Tatum, Ben Simmons, and Donovan Mitchell. All went down for various reasons.

We are singling out Wilson here, and honestly, for good reason. He is high profile and does this a lot, but he is not an outlier.

It is notable how much these influencers and celebrities have focused on basketball. Football and baseball get less attention from them. Baseball, in particular, seems impervious to these folks.

While there are plenty of people who speculate about baseball cards, the whole operation seems more organic. It is much more fan-driven, so there are fewer bubbles and less pumping.

Final thoughts on why basketball cards are tanking  

What makes basketball cards unique is the amount of involvement of celebrities and influencers. It vastly outweighs how often they get involved in other sports. That has turned many people off and lost many of us money. That isn’t very pleasant, and the people involved should be held accountable.

However, there is also good news. The market adjusts. People are catching on to cheap pump-and-dump tactics and realizing the value of cards and basketball wax.

It may be a while, but cards will begin to find their natural value again based on the player’s capabilities and the population reports. Once market influencers have been exposed as frauds and insidious actors, they lose influence.

That creates opportunities. The market for basketball cards right now could be much higher. But as we have seen, the market for vintage is strong.

It has become constantly stronger over the years. That is very significant. This means that players currently on their way to becoming immortals will be recognized by the market. People like Taytum, Giannis, and Jokic are on their way to fantastic Hall of Fame careers.

The market may still need to recognize its importance. But it will. Therefore, it may be wise to buy these guys low in mid-career before retirement comes, and everyone remembers how great they are. Basketball cards are far from dead.