Cards on the table: Smith rules defence, market shrugs

• Andrew Bogut has the highest asking price of any Australian at AU$15,210
• Ezi Magbegor, a WNBA champion and four-time All-Defensive pick, tops out at AU$570
• Luc Longley has three NBA rings and a market ceiling of AU$360

Reigning WNBA Co-Defensive Player of the Year Alanna Smith, 29, has an Australian basketball trading cards market that tops out at AU$2,543, eighth of the 10 Australians surveyed this week.

The survey is simple and anyone can repeat it.

Ten Australians, 10 searches on eBay Australia, each sorted by highest price first, run on the morning of August 4, 2026. Between 57 and 60 live listings a player. Roughly 590 items in total.

The ceiling that came back is the story.

Andrew Bogut, 41, sits on top at AU$15,210 for a National Treasures Logoman pair. Josh Giddey, 23, is a hair behind at AU$15,000 for a Donruss Optic Rated Rookie Fast Break Black one-of-one. Ben Simmons, 30, is third at AU$12,822. Patty Mills, 37, is fourth at AU$9,711.

Then the drop.

Dyson Daniels, 23, the 2024-25 NBA Most Improved Player and the league's best perimeter defender, tops out at AU$3,918.

Lauren Jackson, 45, one of three Australians in the Naismith Hall of Fame, tops out at AU$3,604. Smith is next at AU$2,543.

Ezi Magbegor, 26, is ninth at AU$570.

Magbegor won a WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm in 2020, has been named to four WNBA All-Defensive teams, took bronze with the Opals in Paris and has World Cup silver and bronze on top of that. Her entire market tops out below AU$600.

Two of her signed Seattle Storm jerseys, both third-party authenticated, are asking AU$235.06 each.

That is the number that should bother the sport.

The women's market is not a museum problem. Jackson can be written down as a relic of a smaller era, and plenty of people will. Smith and Magbegor are playing right now, in a league in the middle of a commercial boom, and they rank eighth and ninth of 10.

Daniels and Magbegor are the cleanest comparison on the list. Both are elite defenders. Both are Australians in their prime. One market is worth almost seven times the other.

Mills is worth a line of his own. He won an NBA championship with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 and not one item from it is for sale. No ring, no Finals jersey, nothing game-worn. His most expensive listing is a piece of art by an Australian designer rather than anything the NBA issued.

Andrew Gaze, 61, is the exception that explains the rule.

His is the only page of the ten where the objects outrank the cardboard. A signed And1 ball and shirt at AU$2,611. A framed and authenticated K-Mart top at AU$2,080. A signed NBL basketball at AU$791. Four Melbourne Tigers jerseys between AU$350 and AU$450.

Gaze played before the card economy arrived, so his market is made of things people kept.

There is still no Sydney 2000 flag-bearer kit for sale anywhere. The only Sydney 2000 item on his page is a book he signed with Susie O'Neill, at AU$149.95.

At the other end sits the man with three championship rings.

Luc Longley, 57, won three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and has the lowest ceiling of the ten. The most expensive Luc Longley item listed anywhere on eBay Australia is a 2018-19 Panini Flawless auto at AU$360.42. Every item in his top eighteen is a card. No jersey, no ring, no game-worn anything.

One thing has to be said plainly before anyone reaches for the "Pay Now" button.

These are asking prices, not sales. Between 25 and 56 listings on every page carry a Best Offer flag, which is a seller telling you the number is soft. A sold price is a fact and an asking price is a hope.

The gap between the two is its own signal. Jackson's rookie card is asking about AU$3,600 and the last verified one to change hands went for closer to AU$2,400. A wide spread between what sellers want and what buyers pay is what an illiquid market looks like from the inside.

But the shape holds whichever number you use, and the shape is the point.

An Australian can be named the best defender in her league in September and rank eighth of 10 in October, behind a 23-year-old's rookie card. The market is not reading the same box scores we are.

The most expensive basketball item on eBay Australia this week is a LeBron James and Tom Brady dual autograph one-of-one, asking US$7,000,000, or AU$9,972,930.62.

Behind it sit a Giannis Antetokounmpo insert at US$4,283,422 that is graded NM-MT 8, a Michael Jordan error card at AU$3,400,210.70 listed ungraded by a seller in Australia, a 1984 Olympic gold medal game ticket graded PSA 10 and sold as a Jordan XRC at US$2,301,984, Wilt Chamberlain's signed 1960-61 Warriors rookie contract at US$1,250,000, and a Jordan and LeBron dual patch autograph at US$1,123,456.78.

Six items, six prices, and only one of them, the Chamberlain contract, is the kind of object that has ever fetched seven figures at a real auction. The sixth is asking $1,123,456.78, which is a walk across the number pad rather than a valuation.

Then the market stops being a market. Nineteen of the top 25 carry exactly the same price, US$1,000,000, which converts to AU$1,424,704.37 to the cent.

On that shelf, alongside a LeBron James game-worn All-Star jersey and a Victor Wembanyama rookie patch autograph numbered to five, sit a 1978 Topps Fred Brown graded NM-MT 8, a 1977 Topps Gus Williams, a Jack Sikma rookie and three Topps Now cards of Derik Queen printed last year.

Those are not million dollar cards. They are commons and near-commons whose owners have parked a round number on them, and a round number is what a seller types when he does not actually want to sell.

Not one of the 25 is an Australian player.