NBA Player of the Year Jaylen Brown's Rookie Cards Are Grossly Undervalued Compared to Inferior Contemporary Stars
Jaylen Brown, star basketball player for the Boston Celtics, was just named NBA Player of the Year by SI. This was after solidifying his star turn when he won MVP of the Conference Championship and then MVP of the NBA finals.
So why are his rookie cards not worth more than his lesser-accomplished contemporaries?
Luka Doncic, who was humiliated by Brown in the NBA finals last year, regularly sees his PSA 10 silver Prizm rookie card sell for more than $1,000. And as my colleague Tony Reid argued so well, Luka is becoming unwatchable and uncollectable.
"Luka is a better player than Jaylen!" you might reasonably scream at me. Sure, Luka's stats say that he's a superior individual player. He scores, rebounds, and dishes out assists more than Jaylen. But which player is more successful?
Which player plays on both ends of the court?
Jaylen has played in 22 playoff series over 8 seasons, or 124 games. He's played in the Conference Finals 6 times, and the Finals twice. He won the championship while dominating Luka defensively in 2024and contributing as the Celtics' second offensive option.
Meanwhile, Luka has played in 9 playoff series in 6 seasons, or 50 games. He has played in 2 Conference Finals and the 1 Finals series in which Jaylen and the Celtics regularly embarrassed him.
Now consider the population of the two cards.
There are 297 of Jaylen's PSA 10 Prizm rookie card. There are a whopping 2,363 of Luka's. There are 8 times as many Luka Doncic PSA 10 Silver Prizm rookie cards as Jaylen Brown's.
Is Luka that much better that his cards, which exist at 8x the rate of Jaylen's, sell at 4x the price?Maybe the difference is simply the more global fanbase Luka brings in.
Trae Young is another contemporary whose skills are far inferior to Jaylen Brown's. Sure, he scores a lot, but he bricks a lot of bad shots to get there. His effective field goal percentage, a metric that factors in the difference between two and three points, is the 15th-worst in the league in 2024-25. Jaylen's is well below his own career average and is still significantly better than Trae's.
And Trae doesn't play much defense! Contrast that with Jaylen's lockdown defense.
Trae's cards are a little less valuable than Jaylen's, at $130 for a PSA 10 Silver Prizm rookie, but again they are 8x as plentiful.
Is Jaylen less exciting than any of these guys? He's one of the best in-game dunkers in the league, among guards, and one of the best transition players in the league. He is currently ranked third in the league, behind Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ja Morant in transition points per game, on fewer opportunities. He finished second last year and fourth the year before.
Is it because Jaylen isn't the #1 player on his team? I could argue that Trae isn't the best player on the Hawks, but he is the face of the franchise. Wouldn't that mean that the Celtics top player would have more valuable rookie cards?
Jayson Tatum, the Celtics #1 player, sees a similar discount on his rookie Prizm PSA 10 card. His average price is $700, 30% less than Luka's, and there are only 900 of Tatum's, compared to more than 2,300 for Luka. Tatum's should be more valuable based on his accomplishments and the population of his PSA 10.
Mike runs the hobby YouTube channel Junk Wax Hero, where he talks about a lot of different aspects of the hobby from a collector’s perspective. His most popular series is Attic Find Friday. He also writes a free weekly hobby recap newsletter at junkwaxhero.com. It’s a cliche, but his favorite card is the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.