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Best Panini Basketball Cards 2021 (Top 5 & Buyer’s Guide)

Best Panini Basketball Cards eBay Listings

best panini basketball cards 2021 lebron

 

If you’re looking for the best Panini basketball cards of 2021, you’ve come to the right place! With many elite veterans and up-and-coming rookies in the sport, you can imagine how many great cards are out there waiting to be collected. However, unlike Pokemon, we’re not trying to catch them all. Ahead you’ll find we narrow it down to our 3 favorite cards from Panini Basketball in 2021 and as you would expect, they are loaded with the potential to make you lots of money. And that’s what makes card collecting so much fun, isn’t it?

While there were plenty of cards we would have liked to have included in our Best Panini Basketball Cards 2021 Top 3, the ones that made the cut are some incredible options featuring LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, and LeBron James. The first two will be the Rookie of the Year and the runner-up, while LeBron is arguably the best player in the history of the sport. Easy to see why the following cards have so much potential. We’ll start with a great option for casual to moderate investors and work our way up from there. Let’s go!

 

 

Related Content: 2020-21 Panini Prizm Basketball Release Date and Review

 

 

Best Panini Basketball Cards 2021: Top 5

 

2020-21 Panini Prizm Lamelo Ball Orange Cracked Ice (Check eBay Listings)

best panini basketball cards 2021

With Ball being one of the best rookies in the league we’ve seen in years, you can imagine there’d be plenty of investors looking to get their hands on this hot little item. Right now this one is selling for around $400 which isn’t bad at all considering it’s a Lamelo Ball parallel rookie card from the game’s best card set. We for one have high expectations for Ball over the next few years and expect the price will be far greater at this time next season. And if your expectations aren’t quite as high? Try taking a peek at his rookie year stats or perhaps watch few highlight reels. Barring another untimely injury (knock on wood), Lamelo should develop into one of the most dominant forces in the league over the next 3 years.

 

2020-21 Donruss Red Laser Anthony Edwards Autograph (Check eBay Listings)

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Next, we have a rookie who in our view is even more exciting than LaMelo. At least his highlight reels are anyways. Anthony Edwards was initially not liked by many due to his openness about not being a basketball fan. However, his exciting play and downright funny antics off of the court seem to be changing some minds. The flashy dunks and raw power displayed while in the heat of battle don’t hurt either. This makes for a perfect mid-range to high-end investment with prices sitting around $1,500 at the moment for one that hasn’t been graded.

 

2020-21 Panini Prizm LeBron James Kobe Tribute Purple Ice (Check eBay Listings)

best panini basketball cards 2021 lebron

Last but not least we have LeBron James who really needs no introduction. As the name entails, this is a special tribute to Kobe Bryant, another one of the basketball greats who lost his life too soon. With these two legendary forces being part of the same card, it’s almost a no-brainer that it’ll stand the test of time. Additionally, lookswise it has to be the coolest Panini Prizm basketball card of 2021. There were only 175 of these made so when you combine the rarity and the names associated with this card it’s easy to see why it’s our high-end pick of the year. Expect to pay around $3,500 if you want to add an ungraded version of the card to your collection.

 

2020-21 Panini Crown Royale Luka Doncic KABOOM! (Check eBay Listings)

Talk about a card you can’t take your eyes off of. We’ve long been a fan of the amazing KABOOM! collections and this one from Panini Crown Royale may be the best yet. Like the Lebron card above this one also commands a steep price with ungraded cards going for around $3,000 at the moment. A tall price to pay but with a generational talent like Doncic it could be WELL worth it. If you’re looking to throttle back the spending a bit check out one of the more common Prizm variations of the base card.

 

2020-21 Panini Origins Tyrese Haliburton Purple Ice (Check eBay Listings)

Here is a great play for casual investors who are looking to pick up a great card featuring one of the league’s best rookies from 2021. You’ll get a patch, an autograph, and a rare Prizm card with a print run of just 75 all for well under $200. Of course, another solid season from Haliburton will likely send that price quite a bit higher!

 

 

Now that we’ve told you all about the best Panini Basketball cards of 2021…..

Perhaps you’d like to find out what the best Panini Football cards of 2021 are!

 

 

Best Panini Basketball Cards 2021 Honorable Mention

 

2020-21 Panini Prizm Zion Williamson Flash Back Gold (Check eBay Listings)

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While this one didn’t quite make the list, we had to at least give an honorable mention status to this incredibly high-end Zion card. Williamson has done just about everything that was expected of him in his first injury-free season in the NBA. And then some. Along with the other two rookies in this post, he’s going to be a mainstay of the league for a long time to come. If you had to own any card Zion made in 2021, this is it. Big spenders only though as it last sold in early May for more than a mind-blowing $20,000.

 

 

Trending Topic: Zach Wilson Rookie Card Guide

 

 

Best Panini Basketball Cards 2021 Investment Strategy

 

As far as the two rookie cards go, we’d take a short to medium-term approach. Just like Zion did, we’d expect both Ball and Edwards to only get better next season. A similar big step forward like Williamson took will have you sitting pretty in the short to mid-term future.

Meanwhile, with the Lebron James Kobe Tribute card, we’d go long. Both guys associated with the card are absolute legends and over time we see nothing but steady growth as long as the overall market holds up. Look for a nice pop if Lebron adds any more championships to his name as well.