Cade Cunningham's Card Market Is (Mostly) Going Down With the Sinking Pistons

Cade Cunningham’s sports card market is struggling, and with his team’s current play, it’s fair to wonder when it might recover.

The Detroit Pistons set an NBA record on Tuesday night with their 27th consecutive loss of the season, and Cunningham’s overall market has continued to sink with the team now just 2-28 through 30 games.

An All-American at Oklahoma State, there was little doubt Cunningham would be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. There was also little doubt that he was going to be the sports card hobby’s favorite rookie from the class.

Cunningham is now in Year 3, however, and his card market doesn’t appear to be going in the right direction.

Over the last 365 days, pricing tool Market Movers has tracked over 15,000 sales for Cunningham across more than 1,100 different rookie cards — those cards are down 32% collectively over that period. Narrowing to just PSA 10s, Cunningham’s rookies are down 37%.

Overall, Cunningham’s volume shows that he’s still extremely popular among collectors — only 13 basketball players have had more graded rookie sales tracked by Market Movers over the last year. But the rate his cards are declining is more than expected, even in a sinking market. Over the last year, only four basketball players with at least 5,000 graded rookie sales have seen their markets decline more than Cunningham’s.

On the surface, Cunningham has been fantastic while averaging 23-7-4 this season. His advanced statistics tell a different story, though. Among other high-usage players, he’s been one of the worst in terms of efficiency while proving to be more of a volume scorer than anything else.

It’s also hard to look at Detroit’s roster and definitively see the team making major improvements with the current lineup. Outside of Cunningham, Bojan Bogdanovic has been a fan favorite, though he seems destined for a trade to a playoff contender.

Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart and Jaden Ivey all seem to be part of the core moving forward, but there hasn’t been much evidence so far that says that core will be a contender. For many collectors, Cunningham will need to reach superstar status and lead a contending team to remain a hobby favorite.

Despite Cunningham’s overall market sinking over the last year, there’s been positive movement on several key cards over the last month. According to Market Movers, his 2021 Optic Base PSA 10 is up 48%. Looking at more expensive rookies, his 2021 Prizm Silver PSA 10 has jumped 15% over the last month while his 2021 Mosaic Stained Glass PSA 10 is up 17%.

Cunningham’s volume over the last 30 days isn’t extremely high, but the positive price growth on several key cards is good news. In reality, the markets for several key cards can largely outweigh whatever is happening with non-flagship sets.

Not all cards are created equal, and seeing positive price growth with key products like Prizm and Optic probably tells us more about Cunningham’s market than the decline on his 2021 Revolution Base PSA 10.

The overall decline across Cunningham’s market isn’t good, of course. But recent boosts to several of his key rookies at least shows the market still sees potential if it’s willing to buy when the Pistons are as bad as ever.