Cards
Cooper Flagg, Karl-Anthony Towns, NBA stars pull key rookie cards during Topps Basketball launch parties
It didn’t take long for a Topps Cooper Flagg rookie card to surface.
And it was pulled from a pack of Topps Basketball cards by another NBA star.
New York Kicks center and five-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns pulled a Flagg rookie card numbered to /50 at the Topps Basketball launch party in New York City on Thursday.
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Topps held a series of launch parties across the country to celebrate the official release of Topps Basketball, which returns to the hobby for the first time in 16 years.
While Flagg, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, participated in a launch party in Dallas, Towns pulled his rookie card in NYC, where he was joined by Knicks teammates OG Anunoby and Josh Hart and NBA legend Andre Iguodala.
While Anunoby pulled a card of KAT, his teammate, Towns pulled the Flagg rookie, one of the most coveted cards in the new Topps products.
In New York, fans lined up at the NBA Store at 5 a.m. for the 6 p.m. event. The line, which stretched three city blocks, was so long it had to be shut down by the NYPD for crowd control.
In Houston, at The Better Generation, NBA superstar Kevin Durant pulled a card of himself and immediately signed it for a fan, while also handing out cards to kids and collectors. Winners of a fan 3-point contest walked away with Durant cards, including a 2007 Topps Rookie card graded Gem Mint 10 and numbered to 1,999.
Flagg joined fans at the new CardVault by Tom Brady location in Dallas and the first card he pulled from a pack of 2025-26 Topps Basketball was of Dallas Mavericks legend and Basketball Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki.
Fans at the NBA Store in Los Angeles met Chris Paul, who ripped packs of 2025-26 Topps Basketball with fans. Paul discussed his love for collecting as a kid, especially the iconic 1992 Dream Team set.
Topps officials presented Paul with a 2005-06 Topps pack from his rookie year, and he pulled an Allen Iverson card. He then traded the card to a kid and said, “It’s more fun collecting now as an adult than it was as a kid, ’cause now I know the guys on the cards.”
