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For the first time since the 2009-10 season, Topps will be producing fully licensed NBA basketball cards. The 2025-26 Topps Flagship product is the first release of their new long term license with the NBA.
The Breakdown
The base set consists of 300 cards which includes 45 rookies and 30 combo cards. The combo cards also serve as a checklist with 10 cards listed on the back of each card. Topps is also bringing back the tradition of using the same flagship design across multiple sports. The basketball design is the same as 2025 baseball. There are at least 57 different base set parallels across hobby and retail product configurations. That’s a lot of parallels!
By my count, there are about 28 different insert sets to chase included a variety of redemptions, retail exclusive, hobby exclusive, and even retailer exclusive sets. Topps is bringing the anniversary set concept to basketball with the retro insert set celebrating the 45th anniversary of the 1980-81 set. The same design is used on chrome stock for the silver pack inserts.
Some of the insert sets are utilizing sets from the past like Generation Now and Clutch City, but there are also a ton of new sets to chase.
Autograph and memorabilia cards can be found at varying levels of scarcity across the release.
2025-26 Topps Basketball Inserts
What are People Chasing?
The Topps/Fanatics team did a great job generating buzz for this product. Hobby Boxes were presold on the Topps.com website for about $110 or so. By release day, they had jumped to about $200. Now a week later they are still in that range on eBay. A week into the release, complete 300 card base sets were selling for about $65 on eBay, but I expect these to continue to come down. There was a card show dealer that had a set go unsold at $50 only two days after release.
This is the first time in several years we’ve had a product release at the start of the season with rookies wearing full team uniforms. Cooper Flagg started as the RC to chase, however early in the season, there are a couple other rookies like VG Edgecombe who have performed well and whose cards are also in demand. Many of these rookies also have autos in the product.
Well, That’s Weird?
As fun as this set is, there are a few things I found interesting.
1) Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson are missing from the set. Presumably this is because of exclusive license agreements with Panini, however Topps has not commented at the time of this post.
2) The first few Cooper Flagg base cards sold for $40-50, but they are already down to a more reasonable $5-$6 a week later.
3) At $200 for a hobby box and $400 per Jumbo, the sealed wax prices are aggressively high. The cards look great, but in my opinion, buying singles/sets/lots on the secondary market is the way to go.
COMC, Sportlots, and eBay will be your friend.
Checklist
A full checklist can be found here on Beckett.com
2025-26 Topps Kris Murray retro auto