It took NBA star Cooper Flagg less than a year to produce one of the most valuable basketball cards of all time.
Just ahead of his second NBA season, Flagg, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, saw his Topps Rookie Debut Patch Auto card sell for $8.04 million in the September Premier Auction at Fanatics Collect. The RPA card, which was up for bid from Sept. 10-24, attracted 83 bids and featured an intense bidding war on the final day, climbing from $3.5 million to $8.04 million from 9 p.m. Thursday until 2 a.m. Friday.
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The card is the third-highest sale ever of an NBA card and the most expensive card featuring a single NBA player. The Flagg rookie trails only the 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman Autographs card that sold for $12.9 million in 2025, and the 2006-07 Upper Deck Exquisite Michael Jordan/LeBron James Dual Logoman Auto that sold for $10 million. Steph Curry’s 2009-10 Panini National Treasures Rookie Logoman Auto is fourth at $5.9 million.
The Flagg card is also the most expensive Topps Debut Patch card, surpassing Paul Skenes’ MLB Debut Patch Auto, which sold for $1.1 million.
Two other NBA Debut Rookie Patch cards also set records, with Dylan Harper’s RPA selling for $2.88 million and Kon Knueppel’s Debut RPA going for $2.34 million. They are the three highest selling Debut Patch Auto cards since Topps introduced the coveted chase cards with the MLB cards in 2021.
The heralded 2025-26 NBA Rookie class was the first to wear the Rookie Debut patches on their first NBA jerseys. After their first NBA game, the patches were removed and embedded in a 1/1 Topps Chrome autograph card for each player.