I simply do not understand Modern - Doncic vs Mantle

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by steve B

Like what?

I just went and had a look at the stats, and he's not really even close.
Jordan led the league in points two of his first three years.
Led in ppg his third year.

And one of those years was nowhere near complete. Injuries? Maybe, I forget.

Doncic hasn't even cleared 3000 points in any of his three years.

Steals, Jordan was around 200/year
Doncic hasn't even reached 100/ year


That's not exactly the sort of dominance that makes a 300K gamble more than a very long shot

Age. I said age. Go look again.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Age. I said age. Go look again.

Age is mostly a non- issue unless it's something like a rookie getting into the league at 30 or something like that.

He has played well, but long term I think there's downside that's being missed.

He didn't get any college experience, which maybe hurts him as a player, maybe not.
On the other hand, it may be the best for him financially. He misses about 20 games a year, so it looks like he may not be the most durable guy. Rushing into the NBA at a young age will make him more, but if he's not really ready physically and becomes perpetually injured his career won't be as long as it could have been.

I doubt the early start will give him 18+ seasons instead of 15. But who knows.

I just don't see a card of him being anything more than a big gamble at 300K

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by steve B

He misses about 20 games a year, so it looks like he may not be the most durable guy.

He's never missed 20 games even once. 10 his first year, 14 his second, 6 his third. He's got a chance at missing 20 this year. Unsure how many of the games missed are because of injury and how many were "load management" that so many teams like doing these days.

[mintacular]

The sports card market is not always rational, there's your answer

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by mintacular

The sports card market is not always rational, there's your answer

So very true. An Eddie Yost card just sold for $2500 on ebay. How does that make any sense when you can get a Wade Boggs rookie for $20?

Stop the insanity!

[vintagerookies51]

Aside from the obvious supply and demand explanation, it's simple. The same reason Rocket Lab's stock has been going crazy lately - speculation. While you may think Luka has done "nothing", he won ROTY and has been All-NBA 1st team every year since. The list of people to have done that is very small. Maybe just Duncan? I know LeBron and MJ didn't - they also didn't win a ring until they were 27 so there's a lot of time for Luka to add to his resume.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by vintagerookies51

Aside from the obvious supply and demand explanation, it's simple. The same reason Rocket Lab's stock has been going crazy lately - speculation. While you may think Luka has done "nothing", he won ROTY and has been All-NBA 1st team every year since. The list of people to have done that is very small. Maybe just Duncan? I know LeBron and MJ didn't - they also didn't win a ring until they were 27 so there's a lot of time for Luka to add to his resume.

He also carried a mediocre team to the NBA Finals last year.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Age. I said age. Go look again.

Your facts still do not hold water. Jordan won an NCAA championship and Pan Am Games gold medal at the age of 19 AND an Olympic Gold medal at the age of 21. The Olympic medal alone easily overshadows what Doncic has done.

[Snowman]

Luka Doncic isn't just some chump or random top 10 player. You guys keep saying "he's done nothing". That's ridiculous. The guy won the Euroleague MVP at the age of 19! The youngest winner ever. That's no small feat. The Euroleague is legit. It's the 2nd highest level of basketball there is. What he's done already stats-wise at the age of 22 is unprecedented. He already has the most triple doubles of anyone ever by the age of 22 (and he still has more 22 year old games to play). More than Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Lebron James, Jason Kidd, and Russell Westbrook. And while he's not the current favorite, it is noteworthy that Vegas betting lines opened the season with Luka as the favorite to win the MVP this season. He's not just good, he's great, and he has the potential to be a future multiple MVP winner. There's a reason his contemporaries praise his game as much as they do. The guy is the most impressive young player in the league by a long shot. And lol at whoever said Trae Young was better. You obviously don't know basketball. Defense matters, and Trae Young isn't just a poor defender, he is the worst ranked defensive player in NBA history going back as far as we have sufficient data to be able to evaluate defensive performance (which is something like the past 30 years). He is literally dead last. The worst defender over that timespan.

Whether his talents justify his market prices though is a different question. I agree that I would rather have a nice 52 Mantle than a similarly priced Luka card, but to compare a national treasures RPA card to a vintage base card is like comparing a signed game used Mickey Mantle jersey to a Mickey Mantle card. They're not even in the same ballpark. If there were the equivalent of an NT RPA Mantle card numbers to 99, I'm pretty sure that thing would FAR exceed any other Mantle card value wise. If you want to compare the flagship Mantle "RC" to the flagship Luka RC, then it's not the RPA, it's the Silver Prizm, and a PSA 10 of that goes for around $3k, not $300k. The National Treasures RPA cards are almost an entirely different form of collectible altogether. It's a high end product that is more akin to collecting memorabilia than it is cards, even though it technically is still a card. It's a limited edition product with a very low print run that caters to a very limited group of high end collectors. It's just a very different market.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Snowman

The guy is the most impressive young player in the league by a long shot.

This is an absurd statement. Ja Morant is a younger and better basketball player than Doncic. Every GM in the league would take Morant over Luka given the choice.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

This is an absurd statement. Ja Morant is a younger and better basketball player than Doncic. Every GM in the league would take Morant over Luka given the choice.

You don't say. Even Monte McNair?

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

You don't say. Even Monte McNair?

I would think so, although their needs are at other positions, as DeAaron Fox is pretty damn good!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

This is an absurd statement. Ja Morant is a younger and better basketball player than Doncic. Every GM in the league would take Morant over Luka given the choice.

I'm A HUGE Ja Morant fan. Every since murray state. I've been saying all along, "I don't know if Zion will pan out, but I KNOW Morant will be a superstar."

That said, he's still no Luka Doncic. Not even close. There isn't a single GM in the league who would take Morant over Luka. You don't know basketball if you think otherwise. You're a highlight reel watcher. Morant makes highlights. He's more fun to watch. But he's not a better player. Not even close.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I'm A HUGE Ja Morant fan. Every since murray state. I've been saying all along, "I don't know if Zion will pan out, but I KNOW Morant will be a superstar."

That said, he's still no Luka Doncic. Not even close. There isn't a single GM in the league who would take Morant over Luka. You don't know basketball if you think otherwise. You're a highlight reel watcher. Morant makes highlights. He's more fun to watch. But he's not a better player. Not even close.

Lol!! You are insufferable, and this comment is so ignorant it's not worth continuing the debate even if you weren't so obnoxious.

That said, just for humor's sake I am going to save this post right next to the one where you claim Hyun Jin Ryu is better than Warren Spahn.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

...Hyun Jin Ryu is better than Warren Spahn...

I don't know, maybe he has a point. After all, Hyun Jin Ryu has three names compared to Spahn's two...and he did it with fewer letters.

You can't argue with statistics.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Lol!! You are insufferable, and this comment is so ignorant it's not worth continuing the debate even if you weren't so obnoxious.

That said, just for humor's sake I am going to save this post right next to the one where you claim Hyun Jin Ryu is better than Warren Spahn.

That's when I removed myself from the conversation on the best lefty thread.

Getting back to the purpose of the thread, I honestly think the Doncic card is the perfect reflection of the Modern card market. Doncic is very marketable, appeals to a lot of people and ever since his record setting card a little bit ago, people want to keep buying more of him, that are into Modern.

Mantle is iconic, for the post war Hobby. I do think Vintage does tend to sway a bit towards the older crowd however, and even if Mantle's 52 Topps, transcends that, many of the modern collectors crowd probably has the mindset of, "Well it's not shiny, it's not autographed, it's just a regular card." Mantle's cards do operate, off a sort of Nostalgia of the clean cut, All American Boy, from Oklahoma, who could smack a couple of homers and then go out and party with his pals after the game. I think also the majority of Mantle collectors either fall into the categories of A) Grew up watching him or B) Had fathers who grew up watching him.

Doncic is all the rage now. He's Young, very talented, on the world stage of one of the most popular sports, his cards will reflect that. I don't really understand it either, it's not rational, but neither is this card market, or the fact that digital pixels are selling for thousands of dollars, but NFT's are another discussion.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Lol!! You are insufferable, and this comment is so ignorant it's not worth continuing the debate even if you weren't so obnoxious.

That said, just for humor's sake I am going to save this post right next to the one where you claim Hyun Jin Ryu is better than Warren Spahn.

Ryu is better than Warren Spahn. Along with probably almost half the league today. And again, it's not even close. You're free to think otherwise though. I really couldn't care less.

As for Doncic vs Morant, there's a lot more to the game of basketball than slashing and cutting to the rim for poster dunks. The reasons Doncic is better than Morant are the same reasons that Jokic won the MVP last year.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

This is an absurd statement. Ja Morant is a younger and better basketball player than Doncic. Every GM in the league would take Morant over Luka given the choice.

I was asking my son if Ja Morant was still good. He said he is still good but after the gun incident nobody likes him. Then I started to wonder how his cards are doing and I remembered this thread and I saw this quote/ statement. Still accurate?

Also, it’s a fun reread. How has Doncic’s major rookie cards held up against the 52 Mantle over the past 2.5 years since I started this thread? My gut is the Mantle has done much much better than Doncic over the past 2.5 years.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

I was asking my son if Ja Morant was still good. He said he is still good but after the gun incident nobody likes him. Then I started to wonder how his cards are doing and I remembered this thread and I saw this quote/ statement. Still accurate?

Also, it’s a fun reread. How has Doncic’s major rookie cards held up against the 52 Mantle over the past 2.5 years since I started this thread? My gut is the Mantle has done much much better than Doncic over the past 2.5 years.

Cursory examination of recent eBay auctions has the Doncics in the $10-$20k range and the Mantles in the $25-$50k range. I'm not sure in either case if these are the same ones that were going for low-mid 6-figures a couple of years. ago

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Cursory examination of recent eBay auctions has the Doncics in the $10-$20k range and the Mantles in the $25-$50k range. I'm not sure in either case if these are the same ones that were going for low-mid 6-figures a couple of years. ago

The OP compared the early 2022 auction prices of a 2018 Luca Doncic National Treasurers RPA to 99 graded BVG 9.5 to a 1952 Topps Mantle PSA 7. At that time, a Doncic was at auction in PWCC and sitting at $280k before Buyers Premium and a Mantle being sold in the same auction was at $240k before Buyers Premium.

Looking on Ebay, Fanatics Collect (whatever that is) has the same exact Donci card discussed above as available for sale for $85,000. That is literally 25% of what it was at, with Buyer's premium, in January 2022. Wow, 75% reduction, and that's just asking price. My gut is at auction it sells for even less, which frankly, it should as I dont see why its worth more than $!0k.

Meanwhile, the last sale of a PSA 7, 1952 Topps Mantle, and the only 2024 example in VCP, was for $264k, which is the average of two late 2023 sales. While this is way down from a high of $468k in late 2022 (45%), its only down 8% from where it was in January 2022 (with BP) when the thread was started.

Bottom line, and I think we all know this: Doncic has completely crashed since early 2022 and, while 1952 Topps Mantle is down since that time, it has held up monumentally better than Doncic. Conclusion -- Mantle over Doncic 100 out of 100 times.

As for Morant vs Doncic...... I dont care; I only collect dead baseball players who were played before my grandparents were born

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Michael B

Your facts still do not hold water. Jordan won an NCAA championship and Pan Am Games gold medal at the age of 19 AND an Olympic Gold medal at the age of 21. The Olympic medal alone easily overshadows what Doncic has done.

C'mon. Please read what I actually wrote and respond to that. Here it is again:

Originally Posted by Tabe

He's done - a lot - more in the NBA than Jordan had at a similar age.

I've even highlighted the key portion for you.