basketball · Dallas Mavericks · SF/PF · age 19 · about a year
Cooper Flagg — basketball, SF/PF, Dallas Mavericks, age 19. One of 78 entries, each scored on four separate axes rather than given a single grade.
Start with accessibility, which is 32. That score answers a question the hype never does: can you still buy in at a price that leaves room? At 32 the answer is mostly no. The versions worth owning are already expensive and the cheap entry points are gone.
Breakout (96) and card upside (96) sit close together, which is the straightforward case: if the performance arrives, the cards should follow it rather than shrug.
Set against the 11 basketball breakout picks scored here, its breakout of 96 ranks 1st of 11, card upside 96 ranks 1st, accessibility 32 ranks 10th, and risk 20 is the 1st-lowest. The closest thing to it on the numbers is Kon Knueppel, which scores 86 and 80 on the same two axes — if you're weighing one against the other, the difference is in the reasoning rather than the scores.
A one-year horizon means you're betting on a single body of work — one season, essentially. That's a much narrower bet than a career, and it should be sized like one.
At 20, this is one of the calmer entries in here. Read that as relative: the floor under any card is whatever the next person will pay, and that number can move a long way in a month.
You can realistically find Cooper Flagg cards at a card show and online.
Show tables and online listings are where individual cards change hands, so those two are always open to you. What varies is whether a shop or a retail pack is a sensible way in as well.
Every entry gets four separate scores instead of one grade, because a single grade hides the thing you needed. Full explanation in the guide: how to spot a breakout before the cards move.
Or browse all breakout picks · how these scores are built
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