If card companies, hobby shops and online sellers could design a player whose rookie cards would make products move, they would pick a point guard brought a high level of excitement to a major university and was then selected high in the draft by a famous team in a major media market. His dad’s sometimes outrageous statements kept him in the news, too, but Lonzo Ball rookie cards are popular for what he’s doing now and could do before his career is over.
Hot Start
Ball was drafted by the Lakers and soon after filled Summer League venues in Las Vegas, earning MVP honors. He was already a smash hit by the time the first 2017-18 basketball products hit the market. Others saw him get 29 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists in his second NBA game and joined the bandwagon. He registered his first triple-double against the Bucks just weeks into the season. He was on the cover of the Hoops box,which traditionally kicks off the NBA trading card season and his rookie cards, especially the numbered versions of his Hot Signatures and 2017-18 Hoops Great SIGnificance, quickly soared.
Lonzo Ball Rookie Cards a Key Piece for Panini
The release of 2017-18 Panini Prizm ignited another Ball rookie card boom. Red Shimmer cards, numbered to 8, and Gold Prizms, numbered to 10, sold in the $1,000 to $3,000 range in December 2017. The 2017-18 Panini Prizm #289 Lonzo Ball rookie card has a huge amount of parallel versions and collectors began chasing those on eBay. There are more dozens of different Lonzo cards to search for in Prizm. Emergent, Luck of the Lottery and Sensational Swatches along with the 1/1 2017-18 Priz
m Rookie Signatures Prizms Black #2 are among the best cards in the product.
Can’t drop huge bucks on Ball? There are always Hoops base cards as well as the affordable 2017-18 Donruss rookies. It isn’t difficult for collectors to find his 2017-18 Donruss #199 base, but there are fifteen parallel versions of it to search for too.
Memorabilia and Insert Cards
There are plenty of out of the ordinary Ball relic cards to chase. 2017-18 Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade cards feature a number of memorabilia items, including basketball pieces. Of course there are autographed versions as well. The 2017 Panini Black Friday set has a card with a piece of a Lakers towel on it (card #TT-LB). Lonzo’s 2017-18 Totally Certified Fabric of the Game Rookies #2 is numbered to 249 and there are parallel versions numbered to 10, 5 and 1.
Collectors looking for something a little different can search the checklists for inserts with odd shapes and other unique designs. Ball’s 2017-18 Ascension New Frontiers Die Cuts #1 looks unlike most cards. His 2017-18 Court Kings #168 is similar to old Skybox designs. The 2017-18 Panini Revolution Showstoppers #4 card and its three parallels has a star-filled circle, or maybe a “ball”, as the main feature of the card behind the player picture.
Panini has not been shy about putting Ball’s name out front, as in literally on the front of products. 2017-18 Donruss Optic Basketball, 2017-18 Status Basketball, 2017-18 Totally Certified Basketball, 2017-18 Court Kings, 2017-18 Contenders, 2017-18 Panini Absolute as well as 2017-18 Hoops are some products that have Ball on the boxes.
High-end Lonzo Ball rookie cards like Flawless, Immaculate and National Treasures were still to come as of this writing, but you can see the 50 current hottest cards on eBay via the live list below.
