Giannis: Falling Short on the Court and with his Cards
Who would've thought that a team led by Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard would be struggling with a 3-8 start? The short answer is nobody. The Milwaukee Bucks championship odds have fallen to +3500 and Giannis' sports cards have continued to follow suit.
Here's a chart illustrating the decline in Giannis' card prices over the past month.
Now while it's true that many players have had their card prices correct over the past few years to account for the unsustainable prices that hit our hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic - the problem with Giannis is that his cards don't seem to be leveling out. Let's take a look at how his prices compare to some other stars over the past several years.
At the top, we have Luka Doncic, who, like most players, saw a price correction in 2022 and 2023. Since then, however, his prices appear to have leveled out in 2024.
Similarly, we have LeBron's cards, which also saw a correction in 2022 and 2023 but have since leveled out and even begun to tick back up in price in 2024.
This brings us to Giannis, whose cards have been trending downward since 2022, and it's hard to tell if they've reached the bottom.
Overall, it seems the Damian Lillard experiment hasn't panned out, nor has the Doc Rivers one. A small silver lining is that many of the Bucks' losses this season have been close. That said, they’ll need to learn how to win close games to save their season.
It's worth mentioning that Giannis himself is still putting up incredible statistical numbers; but if the Bucks don't start winning, his sports card prices may very well continue to fall.
Jason is a dedicated basketball card collector who recently transitioned into writing and educating others about the sports card industry. Find him on Instagram @jeancardz