This past week a Steph Curry rookie was plundered. Unfortunately for me I forgot to set my eBay snipe….
But enough about my failures as a sports card collector and investor… shall we examine what someone not named Freddy and who was smart enough to remember to set their eBay snipe pillaged in our eBay Steal of the Day?
Yes we shall!
The baby face assassin.
Chef Curry.
You can simply call him the greatest shooter in NBA History and a top 15 player of all time.
And for all those THREEZUS haters who continue to ignore Finals stats, facts, and injuries to promote their asinine hate narrative aimed at minimizing his greatness and impact… the late Philip Seymour Hoffman has couriered a communique from the great beyond specifically for you:
Let’s dive in to steph’s regular season and finals stats for all 5 seasons in which the Warriors reached the finals.
2014-15 regular season
24 points.
7.7 assists.
4.3 rebounds.
2015 Finals
26 points.
6.3 assists
5.2 rebounds.
Iguadola wins MVP. He’s an important cog in the Warriors machine, but come on… there is no machine without Steph. No Iguadola. The machine still has a chance to win.
2015-16 regular season
30.1 points.
6.7 assists.
5.4 rebounds.
2016 Finals
22.6 points.
3.7 assists.
4.9 rebounds.
I’ll admit. That’s quite a drop off.
He totally choked…
OR…
He was playing on a sprained MCL.
2016-17 regular season
25.3 points.
6.6 assists.
4.5 rebounds.
2017 Finals
26.8 points.
9.4 assists.
8 rebounds.
More points.
More assists.
More rebounds. He was absolutely fantastic. But Kevin Durant was totally transcendent.
2017-18 regular season
26.4 points.
6.1 assists.
5.1 rebounds.
2018 Finals
27.5 points.
6.8 assists.
6 rebounds.
Steph increased his regular season output once again, but the Slim Reaper was a little more amazing… AGAIN.
There is no shame losing Finals MVP twice to a fellow top 15 player of all time.
If my memory serves me correct — it does — I believe Shaq took all 3 Finals MVPS from Kobe.
Does that make Kobe any less great?
NO.
2018-19 regular season
27.3 points.
5.2 assists.
5.3 rebounds.
And then Steph ups his game again in the 2019 Finals with
30/6/5.
But the loss of KD and Klay Thompson was too much to overcome and they fell to the Raptors.
So to summarize Steph owns career Finals Averages of:
26.5 points. 6.2 assists. 5.7 rebounds.
That’s 2 more points, the same amount of assists, and 1 more rebound per game in the Finals versus his regular season averages.
How is that choking or coming up small in the Finals?
IT’S NOT.
I concede he didn’t play like Steph in the 2016 Finals… because he wasn’t feeling like Steph in the 2016 Finals.
An MCL sprain is not an excuse, it’s kinesiology.
For the uninitiated, the MCL is one of four ligaments connecting the femur bone to the tibia at the knee.
It helps keep the knee stable as it moves from the outside to the inside.
Something kind of important for a quick twitch dribbler like Steph that relies on lateral movements to get past defenders and go to the rim OR to juke a defender to open up a long bomb.
Average recovery time from an MCL sprain is 6 weeks. Steph was playing playoff basketball in 2 weeks.
Might explain why Kevin Love was able to lock him up in Game 7.
But enough with the sports science lesson, let’s get back to cards.
When it comes to Steph rookies, everybody loves Topps because it’s Topps… though in basketball I’d argue Fleer has a greater historical significance given that the two most iconic sets of all time — 1961 and 1986-87 Fleer — contain the rookies of Wilt, Jerry West, MJ among a host of others.
But I digress…
Steph’s Topps rookie is also a brutal card to gem.
There are only:
363 PSA 10s out of 3,255 graded.
504 BGS gems or better out of 2,306 graded.
12 SGC gems or better out of 184 graded.
That 15% combined gem rate gives us a combined gem pop of 879.
So it’s no surprise that gem Topps range from $3,200 to $10,000.
But what if I told you someone that remembered to set up their eBay snipe was able to snag a Steph rookie with more than 300 LESS gem cards than the Topps for only $542.69?
Let me present the last sale of the 2009 Upper Deck First Edition Steph Curry parallel in all of it’s quad BGS 9.5 glory.
Besides being an action shot, it also has less combined gems:
215 PSA 10s.
295 BGS 9.5s
12 SGC 10s
That’s 522 combined gems compared to the 879 combined Topps gems.
350 less gems for 1/6th the price.
NICE.
Will the Warriors win another championship and will Steph finally get that Finals MVP?
It just doesn’t matter.
Win or lose, he’s a revolutionary top 15 all-time player who happens to be a global icon off the court as well.
It’s unbelievable there are still gem cards with this much upside.
As always, I’m Freddy…this is most definitely not financial advice… and you’re welcome.
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