Agree. It also can lead to an increase in demand (and as a result price) for these players as they may have entire countries or areas of the world now wanting their cards. It wasn't too long ago that it was pretty much only Americans interested so much in basketball cards.

Anyone want to take guess at what a Yao Ming 1/1 rookie card would go for today if he had just entered the NBA in the last couple of years instead of back in 2002?

Money on the level of what Zion's cards were being offered for.

It can be pretty crazy to see stuff like this happening - agreed. However, we all know that certain professional athletes have always been very popular although they're not the best or even close to being the best. For example, the most iconic vintage football card in the hobby is the 1965 Topps Joe Namath rookie. The last PSA 9 sold for quarter of a million and this was all the way back in 2018! Today, it could be worth over a million or even two million! Now, is this guy the greatest QB ever? Nope. Top ten? Nope. Top twenty? Nope! See what I mean?

Let's get back to Doncic. If this guy wins only one championship (like Namath), then this card is going to be a winner. Only 99 examples exist out there and the basketball card market is way bigger than football.

Oh my God! Did I just defend modern cards? What the hell is happening to me? :eek::eek:

Age. I said age. Go look again.

Namath's title is possibly the most famous one in the history of American sports (and the most famous upset). It may have single-handedly propelled the NFL to eventually reach the behemoth status it has today in the country. It has the lore of the his swagger and guarantee. Probably the most remembered football game ever played.

Doncic would have to win many rings to even come close to his legacy comparing to that. And in the long run, I think his cards will need those kind of results to keep up with today's values.

As I have posted many times, the Namath card is the perfect storm, it's irrelevant that he may not be in the very first rank of the pantheon of quarterbacks. The Namath RC has little relevance to Luka Doncic.

I was thinking with Chinese money we could be talking closer to these Doncic rookie type numbers maybe.

That is pretty good. Tulips anyone?

It's very relevant, Peter.

Namath was an average (or slightly above average) QB. He had maybe three good seasons as a player and won his only ring against a team whose star QB was injured. And yes, that QB was Johnny Unitas! A healthy Unitas would have picked the Jets apart. And finally, after the AFL/NFL merger, I believe the Jets never made the playoffs again with Namath as their QB. But people still love him and will pay big money for his 65' Topps rookie card.

So, with Doncic, it's the same thing. When his career is over, like Namath, he might not rank in the top ten, or even in the top twenty, and he might only get a ring or two, but as long as he has this enormous fanbase, then I expect this rookie card of his to keep growing in value.

Demand for cards, particularly today, seems to be based more on star power than actual production. Or maybe 60/40 star power to production. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Guys like Vlad Jr and Soto are very very good players but they also have star power. You don’t want to be the bathroom when they come up. Go to a baseball game anywhere in the country and you see young kids wearing their jerseys. Go to a Yankee game and still see Reggie jerseys. They have pizazz and flair. Not so much for many other very good players.

Babe Ruth of course had both to spare. Hence his exhaulted position in the hobby. My guy Lou was a little lacking in pizazz.

Namath's card has joined a small pantheon of iconic FB cards. The player's rank relative to the rest of the HOF is not really relevant. National Chicle Nagurski, 1955 Topps AA Thorpe, 1958 Topps Brown, 1965 Topps Namath. None other than Brown reflect the GOAT at his position, really, but all are so iconic for collectors that they are at the top of the heap regardless. Unitas was a far better QB than Namath but his RC pales in comparison. Even newbie collectors know these sorts of cards. I had a meeting with a newbie collector/client (Millennial who started during the pandemic) and he absolutely freaked out at holding a 1952 Topps Mantle in hand. Took a photo and sent it to his fellow newbie collector Millennial friends. That doesn't happen with many cards. Is Mantle the GOAT? Nope. Ruth has that sewed up. But the 1952 Topps Mantle is iconic, so it revs up collectors like few other postwar cards can. I could have handed him a much rarer Ruth card and it would not have had the impact.

Ok but you picked 3 football players that might be in the top 10 all time, and then Joe Namath. It is easy to see which one of those is different from the others.

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Soto and Guerrero are already among the top handful of players in the game, as is Doncic. And they are all young so they likely will become even better. I don't think think the excitement about them is misplaced.

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As a life long Jets fan ill point out that they made the playoffs the very next season in 69. Gotta get credit for every playoff appearance since it doesnt happen often lol

There are certain players whose popularity is always going to be well above their talent level for a variety of reasons. Mantle is the most obvious one. Namath too, although I think he was better than Samosa characterized him. Roger Maris comes to mind. (all New York so far, hmmmm.) Bill Bradley (hmmmm). I would say Kobe, actually.

I think Doncic is about the 15th best player in the league.

Here's how he ranks on media sites that list their top current players

CBS #5
NBC #9
ESPN #6
The Ringer #10
SI- my laptop almost crashed trying to see the list

Leonard is out so far this year, so you can bump Doncic down one spot on each list when he returns.

I'm not bashing Doncic, he's a nice player.

I don't follow football but I know those cards. That is my point. The Namath is one of the handful of attention-grabbing cards even among casual collectors. Thes players' relative rankings are irrelevant: the hobby values them without regard to relative ranking. The Johnny U 1957 RC is not one of the iconic cards, even though he is way better than Namath.

How did he become 15th if the lowest he is on any of the media sites is #10?

The players' relative rankings are irrelevant? You don't really mean that. Virtually all "iconic" cards feature an all-time great player. Surely that is more than coincidence.

Obviously there is more to an "iconic" card than the status of the player. The set itself plays a part, and there is often a special story surrounding the player, card or set. Not all great players' cards get to be iconic, but the circumstance where the iconic card is of a player not in the pantheon of all-time sports greats is rare.

Nagurski did not make the NFL official all time 100 greatest team. Just sayin. Dutch Clark did though.

Hi, David, I think players like Trae Young and Zach Lavine are better than Doncic, and the people who compiled the media lists had a different opinion from me.

Namath is known outside the hobby. He is a cultural icon known by the person on the street. If Jay Leno still did Jaywalking, would anyone know Luca Doncic? I would guess almost everyone I know in "real life" has never heard of Doncic, but would recognize the names of Namath, Mantle, Mays, and even Maris. Kobe? yes. Doncic? who?

So you don't know ANYONE that's a sports fan? Weird.

My family and friends outside the card hobby would know LeBron James and Tom Brady, and maybe Arod, but not Juan Soto and Luca Doncic. They also don't collect baseball cards.

Age is mostly a non- issue unless it's something like a rookie getting into the league at 30 or something like that.

He has played well, but long term I think there's downside that's being missed.

He didn't get any college experience, which maybe hurts him as a player, maybe not.
On the other hand, it may be the best for him financially. He misses about 20 games a year, so it looks like he may not be the most durable guy. Rushing into the NBA at a young age will make him more, but if he's not really ready physically and becomes perpetually injured his career won't be as long as it could have been.

I doubt the early start will give him 18+ seasons instead of 15. But who knows.

I just don't see a card of him being anything more than a big gamble at 300K

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Your facts still do not hold water. Jordan won an NCAA championship and Pan Am Games gold medal at the age of 19 AND an Olympic Gold medal at the age of 21. The Olympic medal alone easily overshadows what Doncic has done.

Luka Doncic isn't just some chump or random top 10 player. You guys keep saying "he's done nothing". That's ridiculous. The guy won the Euroleague MVP at the age of 19! The youngest winner ever. That's no small feat. The Euroleague is legit. It's the 2nd highest level of basketball there is. What he's done already stats-wise at the age of 22 is unprecedented. He already has the most triple doubles of anyone ever by the age of 22 (and he still has more 22 year old games to play). More than Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Lebron James, Jason Kidd, and Russell Westbrook. And while he's not the current favorite, it is noteworthy that Vegas betting lines opened the season with Luka as the favorite to win the MVP this season. He's not just good, he's great, and he has the potential to be a future multiple MVP winner. There's a reason his contemporaries praise his game as much as they do. The guy is the most impressive young player in the league by a long shot. And lol at whoever said Trae Young was better. You obviously don't know basketball. Defense matters, and Trae Young isn't just a poor defender, he is the worst ranked defensive player in NBA history going back as far as we have sufficient data to be able to evaluate defensive performance (which is something like the past 30 years). He is literally dead last. The worst defender over that timespan.

Whether his talents justify his market prices though is a different question. I agree that I would rather have a nice 52 Mantle than a similarly priced Luka card, but to compare a national treasures RPA card to a vintage base card is like comparing a signed game used Mickey Mantle jersey to a Mickey Mantle card. They're not even in the same ballpark. If there were the equivalent of an NT RPA Mantle card numbers to 99, I'm pretty sure that thing would FAR exceed any other Mantle card value wise. If you want to compare the flagship Mantle "RC" to the flagship Luka RC, then it's not the RPA, it's the Silver Prizm, and a PSA 10 of that goes for around $3k, not $300k. The National Treasures RPA cards are almost an entirely different form of collectible altogether. It's a high end product that is more akin to collecting memorabilia than it is cards, even though it technically is still a card. It's a limited edition product with a very low print run that caters to a very limited group of high end collectors. It's just a very different market.

C'mon. Please read what I actually wrote and respond to that. Here it is again:

I've even highlighted the key portion for you.

He's never missed 20 games even once. 10 his first year, 14 his second, 6 his third. He's got a chance at missing 20 this year. Unsure how many of the games missed are because of injury and how many were "load management" that so many teams like doing these days.

....
 

The sports card market is not always rational, there's your answer

So very true. An Eddie Yost card just sold for $2500 on ebay. How does that make any sense when you can get a Wade Boggs rookie for $20?

Stop the insanity!

;)

Interesting, what happened there?

Nagurski was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a charter member on September 7, 1963.

Sports Illustrated named Nagurski one of the four greatest athletes in Minnesota state history.

In 1999, he was ranked No. 35 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, the highest-ranking foreign-born player.

You forgot the Billy Ripken F*** Face. So now you've got Broadway Joe lumped in with the error/scam cards?

This is an absurd statement. Ja Morant is a younger and better basketball player than Doncic. Every GM in the league would take Morant over Luka given the choice.

You don't say. Even Monte McNair?

I would think so, although their needs are at other positions, as DeAaron Fox is pretty damn good!

I'm A HUGE Ja Morant fan. Every since murray state. I've been saying all along, "I don't know if Zion will pan out, but I KNOW Morant will be a superstar."

That said, he's still no Luka Doncic. Not even close. There isn't a single GM in the league who would take Morant over Luka. You don't know basketball if you think otherwise. You're a highlight reel watcher. Morant makes highlights. He's more fun to watch. But he's not a better player. Not even close.

NBA GMs are so wishy washy.

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Lol!! You are insufferable, and this comment is so ignorant it's not worth continuing the debate even if you weren't so obnoxious.

That said, just for humor's sake I am going to save this post right next to the one where you claim Hyun Jin Ryu is better than Warren Spahn. :D

I don't know, maybe he has a point. After all, Hyun Jin Ryu has three names compared to Spahn's two...and he did it with fewer letters.

You can't argue with statistics.

Haha!

That's when I removed myself from the conversation on the best lefty thread.

Getting back to the purpose of the thread, I honestly think the Doncic card is the perfect reflection of the Modern card market. Doncic is very marketable, appeals to a lot of people and ever since his record setting card a little bit ago, people want to keep buying more of him, that are into Modern.

Mantle is iconic, for the post war Hobby. I do think Vintage does tend to sway a bit towards the older crowd however, and even if Mantle's 52 Topps, transcends that, many of the modern collectors crowd probably has the mindset of, "Well it's not shiny, it's not autographed, it's just a regular card." Mantle's cards do operate, off a sort of Nostalgia of the clean cut, All American Boy, from Oklahoma, who could smack a couple of homers and then go out and party with his pals after the game. I think also the majority of Mantle collectors either fall into the categories of A) Grew up watching him or B) Had fathers who grew up watching him.

Doncic is all the rage now. He's Young, very talented, on the world stage of one of the most popular sports, his cards will reflect that. I don't really understand it either, it's not rational, but neither is this card market, or the fact that digital pixels are selling for thousands of dollars, but NFT's are another discussion.

Ryu is better than Warren Spahn. Along with probably almost half the league today. And again, it's not even close. You're free to think otherwise though. I really couldn't care less.

As for Doncic vs Morant, there's a lot more to the game of basketball than slashing and cutting to the rim for poster dunks. The reasons Doncic is better than Morant are the same reasons that Jokic won the MVP last year.

Al, I don't know. I think a lot of people were surprised he was left off that honorary team.

Another nonsensical comment. I can't help but wonder if you are as much of a self-righteous prick in real life as you come across on this board.

Like, if you go to dinner with someone and you disagree about the quality of the food, do you proceed to tell them how they "obviously don't know cuisine"?

Or, at breakfast, do you proselytize to whomever you're with about how your statistical analysis proves that you and you alone have determined the correct milk-to-cereal ratio and if anyone disagrees, "you couldn't care less"?

Readers will notice that you have failed to back up your ridiculous position with your own beloved statistics, and instead have resorted to baseless insults. I wonder why? :D

Let's compare their career stats per 36 minutes:

FG% Morant +1.6%

3PT% Morant +.1%

FT% Morant +1.8%

Rebounds Doncic +4.1

Assist to Turnover Ratio
Morant 2.19:1
Doncic 1.95:1

Steals Doncic +.4

Blocks Doncic +.1

Pts Doncic +4.9

Consider also their qualities as on and off the court leaders, and it will make sense why Morant would be widely preferred among GMs if an anonymous poll was taken today.

Or, perhaps you could use your Silicon Valley VC contacts to reach out to Zach Kleiman and ask him if he would trade Morant for Doncic. Then let us know the number of expletives that his negative response to you contains. :D

Maybe I don't know the new BKB metrics, but if Doncic scores 5 more points with 4 more rebounds, it's not entirely obvious to me that Morant is clearly better? Where at least stat wise is this clear edge to Morant?

Good point. These stats alone certainly don't prove that. I brought up these stats mainly to counter Snowman's assertion that "Doncic is the best young player in the league and it's not close." Just these stats alone are clearly enough to refute that–Morant is a better pure scorer and pure point guard, while Doncic is a better rebounder and marginally better defender.

Statistically, they are trending in different directions, though: Morant has been better than Doncic this season overall by a fair margin, including more points scored per game.

I actually think it's the non-statistical stuff that makes Morant a better player. Morant makes his teammates better, while Doncic....does not. Watching both of them through their career, it's clear that Morant is a far more mature player (and person) than Doncic despite being younger.

What's your assessment (recognizing that obviously it's speculative this early) of Morant's upside?

Allen Iverson with multiple championships and a longer career.

Optimists see Doncic's ceiling as a Euro-/Lite version of Magic Johnson, but for me that's a big stretch. He's a tall, thick point guard, but the comparison doesn't go beyond that for me.