With the WNBA season now complete and the NBA campaign now underway, it’s a good time to assess the state of the basketball trading card market. The far-reaching popularity of Caitlin Clark and Victor Wembanyama has been plain to see, but which other players are collectors gravitating toward? Let’s take a look at some eBay data to find out.
As the season progressed, there was more and more evidence of the WNBA’s accelerating growth — from attendance to merchandise sales and TV viewership — and that extended to the collectibles world, too. According to eBay, searches for “WNBA” items increased 110 percent during the 2024 season compared to the previous year. Of course, Clark driving sales of everything from basketballs to trading cards fuels that, but as we saw with the rise in viewership for a WNBA Finals that didn’t involve Clark’s Indiana Fever, there’s also a knock-on effect that’s creating wider growth in the WNBA collectibles market.
The five most searched WNBA players on eBay during the 2024 regular season:
Now, eBay classified Clark’s lead atop that list as “dominating” — she has been one of their five most searched athletes across all sports, women’s or men’s, at points this year — but the rest of the members of that list should come as no surprise. Reese had a record-setting rookie year, Ionescu was a star for the league’s best team and eventual champions, Wilson won a third MVP in convincing fashion, and Plum was a gold medal winner with Team USA at the Paris Olympics (along with Wilson and Ionescu).
What makes this search data more valuable to people in the hobby than, say, Google search data is that this reflects people actively looking to purchase items related to these players on a marketplace and not just casually looking for general information about them. But while Clark’s trading card demand and prices remain at record-setting levels, there will likely be more affordable buying opportunities this offseason for collectors of the other four members of that list. These WNBA stars reflect their growing markets and all have a strong chance of seeing that continue, but if more and more new WNBA fans get priced out of the Clark market, they may look to put their money into the other names here.
On the men’s side, the sales data indicates how milestone driven the collectibles market can be.
The five active NBA players with the most items sold on eBay during the 2023-24 season:
Wembanyama came into the league last season with a dizzying amount of hype and delivered with a stellar Rookie of the Year campaign that only heightened collector interest in him — as evidenced by the massive interest in getting his cards graded over the offseason. eBay says his name was searched more than 3,100 times per hour globally on their platform from the start of February through the end of the NBA Finals on June 18. (In September, when Clark wrapping up a historic rookie season with some of her best performances of the year, global searches for her name were at a rate of 1,200 per hour.)
LeBron is LeBron, the NBA’s all-time leader in points scored, icon of a generation, so his spot on the list seems automatic. Edwards took a big step forward last season as a young player who collectors see as being on the cusp of superstardom. According to eBay, searches for “Anthony Edwards card” jumped 1,850 percent in May, when he led the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals, compared to the start of the season. Edwards was also one of the three most searched players on the USA men’s basketball team during the Olympics over the summer. If he follows that gold-medal winning performance with another strong NBA season, he could cement himself in that higher tier of players that command top dollar from collectors. Then Doncic and Tatum both led their teams to the NBA Finals, though it’s interesting that the player who lost that series finished ahead of the player who won it. Even though Tatum now has the ring and plays for the more historic franchise, collectors still seem to value to Doncic higher.
The most noticeable absence from this list is Steph Curry. Like LeBron, you’d think he’d be a lock for a spot on there, but it was a relatively quiet season for Curry. The Warriors lost in the play-in game, whereas the Lakers at least made the playoffs and LeBron also had the buzz/anticipation around potentially becoming half of the NBA’s first ever father/son on-court duo (something he and his son Bronny have now achieved). So does Curry’s absence from a list like this show that his market has cooled (as much as the market for an all-time great possibly can) and we’re now in a good Curry buying window? It seems so — especially if the Warriors have another lackluster season. But barring one final championship run or MVP campaign, his market may not really heat up again until his inevitable retirement tour, whenever that may be.
Again, milestones drive buying interest in the collectibles world. And even eBay itself is recognizing that with the launch of a program they’re calling “Gametime Gets” — 24-hour auctions of specific desirable cards that are triggered when a player achieves a specific milestone or feat during the season, all curated by WNBA legend and NBA analyst Candace Parker. Those auctions will hold obvious appeal to anyone looking to buy high-end basketball cards this season, but they should be of interest to collectors looking to sell basketball cards this season too — Parker and eBay have identified potential peaks of interest in certain players that other sellers could strategize around, as well.
So how did Parker select these cards and moments?
“I really drew from my experience as a pro and analyst,” she said. “I tried to anticipate the moments that basketball fans will be looking out for – and players will be proud of – and add to the hype with this curation of iconic cards.”
The player Parker herself is tracking most closely, however, is the reigning WNBA MVP.
“I’m still thinking about the historic WNBA season that just wrapped and can’t wait for A’ja Wilson to break more records,” Parker said. “I know she’s not done yet after winning her third MVP award and being the first player to surpass 1,000 points last season, and next season she’ll be sure to shatter more – whether it’s topping her own milestones or ones of the players that came before her.”
As for her own collecting journey, Parker said, “When I was younger, I was buying packs and trading men’s basketball cards with my brothers. … My claim to fame when I was younger was that I had an AI (Allen Iverson) signed rookie card that I got back when my brother was playing in Philly. That and a signed Michael Jordan card have got to be my favorites. But I’m still growing my collection.”
The card from the Gametime Gets auctions that she’d most like to add to her collection?
“It’s gotta be the LeBron James rookie card — the 2003 Topps Chrome #111 (that goes on sale when James hits 1,500 career games played). Such a unique and historic card that shows where his journey began.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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