Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Haliburton cards jump in value as collectors seek next NBA megastar

New York Times

3 days ago

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton have become focal points of the NBA trading card market as the young Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers stars have guided their teams to the NBA Finals.
Outside of aging veterans like LeBron James and Stephen Curry, the injured Victor Wembanyama, and the still massive shadow cast by Michael Jordan, the NBA card market lacks bonafide box office draws, resulting in WNBA cards selling for more than comparable NBA cards for the first time ever.
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With the NBA Finals starting Thursday, this will be prime ground for SGA and Haliburton to prove they belong in the spotlight.
The two stars, both making their first trip to the NBA Finals, have been two of the more heavily transacted players in the last 30 days in terms of total card sales, according to Market Movers, which tracks card sales across multiple marketplaces. The Pacers guard ranks seventh among all basketball players with more than 4,100 individual card sales. The Thunder guard and newly crowned league MVP ranks eighth with more than 3,400 card sales.
SGA's cards have commanded a much higher price tag than Haliburton's lot, though. Through the past month, SGA ranks eighth in total dollars as his cards sold for nearly $667,000 all together. Haliburton sits 10th on this list with nearly $331,000 in sales. For perspective, Michael Jordan ranks No. 1 on this list with $5.6 million.
Let's use the players' Panini Prizm Silver rookie cards with a gem mint 10 grade from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) as the baseline to gauge their markets, as they are popular cards that are frequently transacted but are more scarce than the base versions.
SGA's 2018 card — with the Los Angeles Clippers — stands as one of the most expensive Prizm Silver rookie cards yielding an average price of $1,200 within the last 30 days. Only Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic carry Prizm Silver rookie cards, and that's thanks in most part to a small population count for rookie cards with those two players.
The $1,200 price tag is nearly double where it was at the beginning of the year, when this card averaged sales of $675. One SGA rookie card sold for as much as $1,400 during the last 30 days. His current card price has jumped 300 percent in the past two years, only carrying an average price tag of $300 in May 2023.
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By the Thunder eliminating Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference finals, the door feels wide open for SGA to take a firmer grasp at becoming one of the next big things in the basketball card hobby.
Edwards' card market launched in last season's playoffs, specifically his 2020 Prizm Silver rookie in a PSA 10. In April 2024, Ant Man's card only sold on average for $597. His monster on-court run during the next month, during which searches for his name on eBay shot up 1,850 percent compared to the start of the season, launched this card into orbit with average sales on May 9 up to around $1,840.
One week later, Edwards' cards drastically dipped in value to average sales of $1,120. The Silver rarely reached or topped that daily average ever since. Once this year's postseason commenced, we were right back where we started with Edwards. His 2020 Prizm Silver in a PSA 10 was even lower in mid-April this year than where it was before his sharp uptick, selling for $561 on April 15.
His market shot back up in May, with the Timberwolves' run to the Western Conference finals, as average sales reached as high as $1,090 as of May 20. Now with Minnesota falling to Oklahoma City, Edwards' gem mint Prizm Silver card is already dropping again, averaging $870 as of Sunday.
The card market for Haliburton, the league's most overrated player according to his peers in this season's anonymous player poll by The Athletic, flourished from an immediate boom shortly after the Pacers landed a spot in the NBA Finals. Haliburton's 2020 Panini Prizm Black Finite one-of-a-kind rookie card with a PSA 10 grade sold for nearly $120,000 last Saturday, which is about $35,000 more than his highest selling card of any kind.
This is quite the turnaround after Haliburton's market sank to an all-time low early this season.
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Once selling for as high as $700 in September 2021, his 2020 Panini Prizm Silver PSA 10 graded rookie card only commanded an average price of $161 in mid December. This occurred five months before The Athletic published the poll. Haliburton's rookie card — with the Sacramento Kings — rarely commanded a sale of more than $200 until May. The card is now selling for an average of around $413 as of Sunday, with a high sale of $450 in the past 30 days.
Had the New York Knicks toppled the Pacers, the NBA trading card world's eyes would've been glued to Knicks guard Jalen Brunson instead. His card values during the past year have been on a very similar plane as Haliburton. Brunson's 2018 Prizm Silver rookie card — with the Dallas Mavericks — in a PSA 10 sold on average as high as $318 in mid-May. After the Eastern Conference finals loss, the card now only averages $247 as of Sunday.
Last season's NBA Finals felt the same way for a potential card value boom for Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum. But he didn't play up to superstar level even though the Celtics won the title — so much so that teammate Jaylen Brown won the series MVP. Unfortunately for Tatum and his collectors, the forward ruptured his Achilles tendon in the Eastern Conference finals this year and will likely miss much of next season. His 2017 Prizm Silver rookie card with a PSA 10 grade went from averaging $979 in early June 2024 down to $585 as of Sunday.
So even if you're the top star of an NBA championship winning team, it's no promise the player's card value will not only vault but maintain a new heightened price. But if SGA or Haliburton play to an NBA Finals MVP level, maybe one of the two, or even both players, could propel themselves into a higher trading card price bracket.
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