Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) drives against Golden State Warriors guard LJ Cryer (18) during overtime of an NBA basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors, Monday, March 23, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
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Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg doesn’t turn 20 until December. Still, he’s already won the national player of the year at Duke as a freshman in 2025 and the NBA rookie of the year in April. His accolades and potential have made him a hot commodity in the collectibles field, too.
Early Friday morning, Flagg’s Topps rookie debut patch card sold for $8.04 million, the highest amount ever for a single NBA player, according to Fanatics, which bought Topps in 2022 for a reported $500 million. The company said the bidding went from $3.5 million at 9 pm Eastern Time Thursday to the final price at 2 am Friday.
The Flagg card was part of an auction through Fanatics Collect, an online marketplace that was previously known as PWCC until Fanatics acquired it in 2023. The auction also featured rookie debut patch cards for San Antonio Spurs guard Dylan Harper and Charlotte Hornets guard Kon Knueppel that sold for $2.88 million and $2.34 million, respectively. The final prices included a buyer’s premium, which is a fee paid to an auction house on top of the winning bid. The buyers of the Flagg, Harper and Knueppel cards were not disclosed.
Topps introduced the debut patch cards in 2021 with Major League Baseball. The one-of-one cards include a signed patch that players wore during their professional regular season debuts. The previous record for a debut patch card occurred in March 2025 when Dick’s Sporting Goods paid $1.1 million for Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes’ rookie debut patch card via Fanatics Collect. Topps began selling the NBA debut patch cards in August, so this is the first rookie class to have them.
Jason Williams, who lives in South Carolina, won the Flagg card last month via an online card break sponsored by RhodyBreakers, which has a store in North Kingstown, R.I. In a card break, people can pay money to get access to certain cards in a box such as those of their favorite team. A host then opens the sealed box online and later distributes them to people who participated.
Soon after Williams won the Flagg card, the Mavericks offered to purchase the card for a game-worn Flagg jersey and two premium level season tickets for 32 years, among other items. Meanwhile, The Athletic reported auction houses and wealthy individuals offered Williams hefty sums for the card.
The morning after Williams pulled the card, Fanatics Collect vice president Kevin Lenane took a ferry from Port Jefferson, N.Y., to Bridgeport, Conn., and then hopped into an Uber to the card shop in Rhode Island. Clay Thomas, a Fanatics Collect sales representative, flew out from California and met Lenane to begin negotiations with Williams. Williams later chose to sell it through Fanatics Collect.
Lenane would not disclose how much of the $8.04 million Williams will keep, but he noted that Fanatics Collect typically receives a fee for offering cards via its auctions. Fanatics also offers marketplace advances for individual cards valued at $1,000 or more, where sellers can receive up to 50% of the value of the card upfront before it is sold at auction. Fanatics said on its website that the card’s value is “based on current market demand, rarity, condition and historical sales data” and is determined by the company before offering the advance.
The Flagg card is the most expensive card sold via Fanatics Collect and the third-highest NBA card sale in history, only trailing a dual card of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant that sold for $12.9 million in August 2025 and a dual card of Jordan and LeBron James that sold for $10 million in December 2025.
Flagg averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game last season, becoming the first rookie since Jordan in 1985 to lead his team in all four of those categories.
Meanwhile, Knueppel, Flagg’s former Duke teammate at Duke, averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. He shot 47.5% from the floor, including 42.5% on 3-pointers, and made an NBA-high and rookie-record 273 3’s.
Harper averaged 11.8 points and 3.9 assists in just 22.6 minutes per game during the regular season and helped the Spurs advance to the NBA Finals, where they lost in five games to the New York Knicks. In the playoffs, he averaged 14.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, including 18 points and 6.4 rebounds in the finals.
“Culturally, basketball stands out as a sport, and (Flagg) is the star rookie of basketball,” Lenane said. “And I think people do see that he could be really a kind of historically good player. There’s a lot of excitement around him and that rookie class in general.”
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