King Kong Cards is a new post category where I examine undervalued rookie cards with MONSTER profit potential. Today’s majestic cardboard beast: Luka Doncic.

While most casual American basketball fans and card collectors don’t respect or understand Euroleague basketball, the fact that Luka won a regular season MVP, Playoff MVP, and Euroleague championship by the age of 18 should have resulted in a similar Zion Williamson hype effect before Luka was even drafted… but the track record of European players in the NBA is… well… checkered at best.

I know what you’re thinking. “But Freddy… the Luka hype train left the station months ago. PSA 10 base prizm rookies were selling for over $600 before the quarantine madness set in. What are you talking about? There are no Luka deals to be had.”

What if I was to tell you there is a MONSTER Luka rookie card that is going to be worth double the base Prizm PSA 10 in five years… and that you can find them for less than the base Prizm PSA 10’s right now? Would that pique your interest? It should. What is the card you ask?

Let me (re)introduce you to Luka’s first professional rookie card by a major licensed manufacturer: the 2016-17 Upper Deck Euroleague Patterned Rainbow Luka Doncic.

You can find them popping up on eBay for $200 – $600 with recent BGS 9.5 sales in the $250-$350 range. Why am I so hyped on this card and personally investing more money in this card over his base Prizm rookie?

Firsts Matter

It’s his first professional card by a major manufacturer and it predates his NBA releases by two years. Whether it’s comic books, vinyl, or sports cards, firsts matter. As collectors become more aware of the 2016-17 Euroleague Doncic and it’s variations, demand will surge while supply will remain super short print limited.

Super Short Print

Taking a peek at the combined BGS and PSA population reports for the base 2018-19 Prizm Luka Doncic rookie you’ll notice that over 16,000 have already been graded.

This figure doesn’t account for the quarantine backlog of Luka base Prizms waiting to be graded at BGS and PSA facilities, or the Lukas lurking in unopened wax.

Compare those Prizm figures to ALL THREE VARIATIONS of the 2016-17 Upper Deck Euroleague Doncic COMBINED.

286 cards. TOTAL. Compared to 16,000 base Prizms. This population gap is ENORMOUS. Now I know what you’re thinking, “…but Freddy… what about the backlog of 2016-17 Euroleague cards waiting to be graded at BGS and PSA and the unopened 2016-17 Euroleague sealed wax? Won’t those goose the population reports in the future?”

NO.

Therein lies the beauty of this product. There is ZERO sealed wax left to open. That’s because the traditional 2015-16 Upper Deck Euroleague release was such a dud, they turned the 2016-17 product into an e-pack offering.

But aren’t there a bunch of raw Patterned Rainbow and base Rainbow foil luka’s waiting to be graded?

NO.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the cost of pulling 2016-17 Euroleague Luka’s before the hype train left the station. At release in 2017, e-packs were $2.99. Twenty four pack boxes cost $69.99. Twelve boxes made up a digital case. The set consisted of 100 base digital cards with base Rainbow parallel physical redemptions falling one every two packs. So if you bought a box, you received 12 parallels, meaning that if you wanted to guarantee pulling a base Rainbow Luka you had to buy 9 boxes at a cost of over $600.

The scarcer Patterned Rainbow parallel required collectors to pull ten digital Luka base cards and exchange them for one physical Patterned Rainbow parallel. Assuming you were the luckiest collector alive and managed to pull a second Luka digital base among your twenty dupes in every box, you’d still need to buy five boxes to obtain ten Luka base cards at a cost of close to $400. That’s an “Everything Is Going My Way” scenario.

This lack of release popularity, e-pack format, and super short print run is why I don’t see these numbers doubling, tripling, or quadrupling… and even if they did triple — which would be a mathematical hobby anomaly given graded submission rates to date — you’re still looking at less than 1,000 cards combined across all three Euroleague variations.

While I like all the variations, it’s near impossible to find the autograph, and I prefer the Patterned Rainbow over the base Rainbow foil due to it’s scarcity. The Patterned Rainbow is going to be Luka’s 1984-85 Star Jordan XRC. Just like the 84-85 Star Jordan base rookie when compared to the 86-87 Fleer Jordan rookie card, the 2016-17 Upper Deck Euroleague Doncic may be overshadowed in terms of hype, but the value of the Euroleague Doncic will eventually overshadow the Prizm base rookie 2x at least.

These affordable times are quickly drawing to a close once the season resumes this year or next. Snag yours before it gets WAY MORE expensive.

FREDDY FORECAST: BGS 9.5 2016-17 Upper Deck Euroleague Luka Doncic Patterned Rainbows will be selling for $1,100 by the end of the 2020-21 season.

Click here to get the latest eBay listings for the 2016-17 Upper Deck Euroleague Patterned Rainbow Luka Doncic. To watch this episode of KING KONG CARDS on the Freddy Find YouTube channel click here or right here to watch on the website.

As always, I’m Freddy… and you’re welcome.