With NBA Top Shot (TS) taking a break from pack drops this week, I thought it would be a good time to take a step back and get a more overarching view of the market to try and identify some potentially undervalued Moments. Yes, the market is still in the tank and the arrow’s pointing down, but it’s times like these that give us an excellent opportunity to pick up some major W’s by buying the dip.
As always, before discussing any potential buying decisions I need to say that I am not a financial investor nor adviser. I am, however, still very much in the green on Top Shot despite the market being way down, which is more than a lot of folks can say right now. As always, you can check my stats at MomentRanks.
Now, it’s important to understand that the buying decisions I discuss in this column are based on the assumption that the market will come back to life at some point, although I cannot tell you when that will happen, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the overall market continue on its current downward trajectory for at least another few months. Patience will be required to see the returns here, and Top Shot will need to cooperate as well, by continuing their marketing efforts to bring in more users while maintaining a smooth-running ship.
I’m not going to recommend specific targets in this column, but I will provide the key buying and selling strategies I’ve picked up through my time on Top Shot, and I will point in certain directions. Generally speaking, when I’m making long-term buying decisions these are the things I look for/ask myself:
1) Is this player a star/future star?
2) Is this Moment a bottleneck? If not, how many Moments does this player already have?
2) Is the Edition Size attractive?
3) Are good serials available near lowest ask?
4) Is there anything unique about this Moment?
5) What is the buying history of this Moment?
Superstars sell well on Top Shot for obvious reasons, so they are safe targets, but you can also get nice wins by identifying up-and-comers and buying before they explode. Someone who I’ve had my eye on lately is Davion Mitchell, who went on quite the tear over Sacramento’s final 14 games, putting in averages of 18.3 points, 7.9 assists, 1.6 triples and 1.3 stocks (0.8 steals/0.5 blocks) per contest on 46% shooting. I think he’s primed for a big Year-2, as I’d anticipate him opening the year as a full-time starter, and he’s the kind of player who can really rack up the counting stats – giving him great Flash Challenge potential. I think he’s one of the more undervalued rookies at the moment, with his Top Shot Debut having a lowest ask of just $46, particularly when you consider the fact that this very Moment hit $300+ back in February.
Now, because Top Shot’s Collector Score system incentives its users to complete Sets/Teams for tiered CS bonuses, the bottleneck Moments on any given Team/Set tend to be less volatile and are intrinsically more valuable. If the Moment I’m buying isn’t a bottleneck, I still want it to have some distinguishing characteristic, like a particularly nice serial, or a rare play type within a Set or a badge that makes it unique in some way.
For the most part I don’t target Moments with an Edition Size larger than 15K, although I do make an exception for the Hustle & Show Set and Series 3’s Rising Stars Set. I also think it’s important to buy good serials, as an attractive serial number won’t have you tied to the lowest ask, and they stand out more on the listing page. For Moments with a 12K-15K Edition Size, I don’t like buying a serial any higher than 1.5K, and I prefer triple-digit serials that begin with the number 6 or lower. If it’s a Rare Moment with an Edition Size in the triple-digits, then I go after double-digit serials. Again, this is because those serials visually stand out on the listing page and are genuinely more attractive to purist collector types.
Lastly, before pulling the trigger on a Moment I’ve identified, I always check the buying history of that Moment so I can get an idea of its general upside and direction. There are multiple sites that provide this data, but one of my personal favorites is evaluate.market, as I think their graphs are the friendliest to the eye.
What are bottlenecks?
Bottlenecks on Top Shot are players who only have one Moment (this is rare) on the platform, or Moments (with a relatively low Edition Size) that are required for completing Sets/Team Sets. A Set is essentially the branding of a Moment and is identified by the image (and border on higher tiers) to the right of a player’s picture.
As an example, a “Base Set” Moment will have nothing more than a grey logo of the player’s team alongside the still image of his Moment, whereas a Moment from the Legendary “Deck the Hoops” Set will have a neon, 3D border, and some of the artwork from that pack displayed to right of the player’s picture. For the Set Completion bonus the bottleneck will always be the Reward Moment in that set with the lowest Edition Size.
Acquiring a Full Team Set involves collecting one Moment of every player (excluding the historical Moments) who has received a Moment for a given team, across every Series. However, there are also Series Team Sets, which involves collecting one Moment of every player who appeared for a given team through a given Series (excluding the Summer 21 Series).
Top Shot Doesn’t Like Bottlenecks
It’s worth noting that when I asked NBA Top Shot’s Community Lead, Jacob Eisenberg, back in March about the concept of having bottlenecks on the platform, he responded that “no Moment on Top Shot is designed to be a bottleneck,” and over the following months we saw TS act out those marching orders with nearly every relevant non-rookie NBA player receiving a bottleneck-crushing 60K Moment. Now, while most star players on the platform no longer have quality bottlenecks, there are still a few exceptions out there (D’Angelo Russell, Deandre Ayton, LaMelo Ball, Zach LaVine, etc.) and for the Team Series Sets and Set Completions, bottlenecks are unavoidable. As a reminder, Top Shot awards Collector Score (CS) bonuses for completing Teams/Sets, which is what gives these Moments some extra value, and I’ve discussed these various bonuses in great detail in previous columns.
Set Completion Bottlenecks
For collectors to be eligible for future airdrops from holding a specific Set and receive the 2x CS boost that comes with completing one, they are required to acquire each player who was released under that specific Set, including the Reward Moments. This is why the Reward Moment with the lowest Edition Size on any given Set will always serve as that Set’s bottleneck.
As an example, in Series 3’s Rising Stars Set, Cade Cunningham’s Reward Moment is the bottleneck, as it has the lowest Edition Size (8,945) amongst the three Reward Moments (Cade, LaMelo and Mobley), and because of that, he is the most expensive with a lowest ask of $90. However, that price is way down from where it was back in March, when the average sale was in the $170-range.
A nice feature of these Challenge Reward bottlenecks is that they’re always safe, as Top Shot cannot introduce any alternative options once a Set has been fully released. The same cannot be said for Full Team Set bottlenecks.
However, if your goal is to make profits, then completing an entire set is not something I’d recommend, especially if doing so during a Challenge. If score boosting is what you’re after, it’s still not the most cost-effective way to get your CS up, as Top Shot still doesn’t allow “stacking” of Moments on completed Sets – which is not true for Team Sets. Also, the benefit of receiving a future airdropped pack is often outweighed by the cost of completing the Set itself.
For example, it would currently cost ~$494 to complete the Hustle & Show Set from Series 2, which would net you a 720-point score boost and a free pack (maybe a few) in the upcoming (and final) Hustle & Show release of Series 3. However, that Hustle & Show 3 pack will likely only cost $14, and given how recent drops have been going, it shouldn’t be too difficult to secure multiple packs regardless of your Collector Score. So, why spend close to $500 to secure a few $14 packs that won’t get close to touching that number even in a best-case scenario?
If you really want to complete a Set just because, the best way to go about it would be to wait a few months after the entire set is released and no longer top of mind amongst the Top Shot community, and then you’ll likely be able to complete the entire set for a fraction of what it would cost to assemble in-Challenge – while also being able to select the serials of your Reward Moments yourself.
So, while I wouldn’t recommend buying an entire Set, I do see a viable strategy in targeting the Challenge Reward bottlenecks, or rare play types within a given Set. By rare play types, I mean if a certain Set only has one or two Moments under a given play type, then buying those now could prove fruitful during a future Set Completion Challenge. For example, during the first release of Hustle & Show 3 earlier this year, one of the Challenges required securing a Moment from the Hustle & Show 2 Set that had “3-pointer” as the play type, and there are only two 3-pointers within the set. This created a two-option bottleneck, and we saw both Saddiq Bey (top) and R.J. Hampton’s (bottom) H&S2 Moments pump from ~$18 to ~$70.
Below is how many Moments under each play type there are within the H&S 2 Set:
3-pointer: 2
Assist: 4
Block: 2 (one is Giannis Challenge Reward)
Dunk: 6 (one is Ja Challenge Reward)
Handles: none
Jump shot: none
Layup: none
Steal: 4
If you’re targeting Challenge Rewards, I think it would be smart to go after Sets that are currently popular, and you can browse the numbers of every Set at otmnft.com, but here’s a list of the ones that have at least 2K completions:
Hustle & Show 3 ($204) – 7,046 completions
Rising Stars 3 ($340) – 6,842 completions
Hustle & Show 2 ($494) – 4,970 completions
WNBA Player’s Choice ($16) – 4,863 completions
Game Recognize Game ($297) – 4,358 completions
Extra Spice ($425) – 3,599 completions
Archive Set ($607) – 3,422 completions
Fresh Threads ($369) – 2,934 completions
The Gift ($266) – 2,767 completions
Cool Cats ($3,550) – 2,710 completions
WNBA: Best of 2021 – 2,244 completions
Seeing Stars ($767) – 2,235 completions
If you do decide to target a Challenge Reward Moment without completing the Set, then I think the best time to sell would be right before the air drop, as that’s when prices will be bumping on the Rewards with folks attempting to assemble their sets. If you wait until after the airdrop, the value of your Challenge Reward will likely tank, and if that’s the case you’ll need to wait until the following season (or get lucky in a Flash Challenge) for another opportunity to turn a profit.
Team Set Bottlenecks
An example of a Full Team Set bottleneck would be Jarrell Brantley’s Series 1 Top Shot Debut, as that Moment is required to be eligible for the 2.5x CS score boost that comes with completing Utah’s Full Team Set. Brantley played a total of 37 games through two years in the league, and he did not earn a contract during the 2021-22 season, so we’ve likely seen the last of him in the NBA. There will never be another Brantley Moment for the Jazz, partly because he never should have had one to begin with, so he will forever be a bottleneck to Utah’s Full Team Set; which is why this no-name player currently has a lowest ask of $148. In fact, at the start of the 2021-22 season, Brantley’s S1 Common was regularly selling for $500+.
Now, if a player retires or gets traded, their bottlenecks on that team will be safe, but the same cannot be said for active players. As an example, Kelly Oubre Jr.’s S3 Fresh Threads Moment served as a bottleneck to Charlotte’s Full Team Set from November to February, but when Top Shot introduced a 60K alternative, the value of his Fresh Threads Moment plummeted from $40 to $8 in the span of 10 days – and current lowest ask on that Moment is just $4. So, you always should be cautious when holding bottlenecks of active players during an on-going series.
So, if you choose to target some Full Team/Series Team bottlenecks, I would recommend going after the more popular Team Sets. You can browse every Team Set and its completion numbers at otmnft.com, but the top-4 most popular Full Team Sets are:
Minnesota ($149) – 3,109 completions
Bottlenecks: Jake Layman, Juancho Hernangomez, Jarrett Culver
Charlotte ($104) – 3,094 completions
Bottlenecks: Brad Wanamaker, Bismack Biyombo, Malik Monk, Devonte’ Graham
Milwaukee ($278) – 786 completions
Bottlenecks: Eric Bledsoe, Sam Merrill, P.J. Tucker, Serge Ibaka, Wesley Matthews
Denver ($391) – 462 completions
Bottlenecks: Zeke Nnaji, Paul Millsap, PJ Dozier, DeMarcus Cousins, Jerami Grant
The top-5 most popular Series 2 Sets are:
L.A. Lakers ($62) – 5,023
Bottlenecks: Andre Drummond
Charlotte ($88) – 4,211
Bottlenecks: Brad Wanamaker, Bismack Biyombo, Malik Monk, Cody Martin (has 60K option in S3), Devonte’ Graham
Portland ($63) – 3,980
Bottlenecks: Nassir Little (has 60K option in S3), Robert Covington
Denver ($66) – 3,471
Bottlenecks: Zeke Nnaji, Paul Millsap, JaMychal Green (has 60K option in S3), PJ Dozier, Austin Rivers (has 60K option in S3)
Minnesota ($122) – 3,433
Bottlenecks: Jake Layman, Juancho Hernangomez, Jarrett Culver, Jarred Vanderbilt (has 60K option in S3)
As for when to unload these bottlenecks, in general, I’ve found the best time to sell is within the first 24 hours after a Rare/Legendary pack is announced, as that’s when collectors on the cusp of completing a Team Set tend to finally pull the trigger on buying the expensive bottleneck. After about 48 hours the value of those bottlenecks often starts to dip, as collectors who already have their Team Sets then start targeting non-Base Set Moments and cheap Rares to get those final few points to move into the priority queue.
Top Shot Debuts / Challenge Rewards
Outside of bottlenecks, Top Shot Debuts (TSD) and Challenge Rewards with low Edition Sizes make for intriguing targets, as these two badges provide distinguishing features that can be pointed to (and essentially rendered bottlenecks) during Flash Challenges. The TSDs are the more attractive between the two, as these Moments will always stand out as the player’s first Moment on the platform, and they come in attractive Edition Sizes. Rookie Top Shot Debuts (4K) are quite attractive as they qualify for two firsts (their first NBA season and their first Top Shot Moment), and if we draw the obvious parallel to trading cards, rookie-year cards are always some of the most valuable in that industry.
