Why Zion Williamson Is The Worst Investment of 2020
Since the beginning of 2020, one of the most popular cards in the NBA trading-card market — Zion Williamson rookie cards — have also been one of, if not the, worst performing of all.
While players like Luka Doncic, Trae Young, and Michael Porter Jr have seen every variation of every card booming to the tune of hundreds and even thousands of percent growth, Zion card holders have not been so lucky, as is shown by the graphic below.
As per the data, investing in Zion’s Donruss, Hoops, or Mosaic PSA 10s would have netted investors losses ranging between 33 and 69 percent; not only a hefty loss their own right, but doubly so when considering the opportunity-cost of having capital tied up in a depreciating asset during the most bullish market in sports-card history.
For comparison, although he’s also been far from good, even Ja Morant has seen his cards massively outperform his 2019 draft counterpart.
But it’s not until we compare Zion’s cards to those of the three 2020 card-GOATs mentioned above — Luka, Trae, and MPJ — that we really see just how horrific of an investment Williamson’s cards have been.
But before you go out and set your Zion rookies on fire, it hasn’t been all bad for the former Blue Devil, with his Optic and Prizm base cards increasing in value by 15–20%.
And while these moves have seen nowhere near the type of meteoric growth that the players mentioned above have (with the lowest appreciation being Morant at 75% for the Optic and 210% for the base Prizm), at least they’ve outperformed simply keeping your cash in USD…which I guess is something.
So what can we take away from this all? Well, I’m not sure I have the answer to that, but it does seem as though investors lack confidence in Zion’s mid-to-long-term value compared to his NBA counterparts and are using the recreational-money-hype to offload supply at consistently declining prices. Whether it’s due to the assumption that the Pelicans are unlikely to compete in a loaded West anytime soon, or concerns about holding cards of a player whose physical shape and injury-risk have been debated ad nauseam since his entrance to the NBA, one thing is clear: in a year where it’s been hard to miss in the sports-card market, Zion Williamson cards have undeniably been one of the worst investments of all.
