Product Overview
The release of 2025-26 Topps Basketball marks the company’s first licensed basketball product since 2009, as Fanatics and the NBA enter into a new long-term and exclusive trading card licensing agreement.
Collectors can expect to find an autograph or relic card in every hobby box, while jumbo boxes will feature one autograph and one relic.
Topps had produced NBA cards in recent years through an agreement with the NBA Players’ Association, but that prevented the company from using logos or team names. Among Topps’ recent basketball sets, none were a new edition of the flagship product.
Historically, Topps first produced NBA cards in 1957-58, then again from 1969-70 through 1980-81. A rise in the NBA’s popularity pushed Topps to return the flagship set to the industry in 1992-93, and collectors enjoyed a new edition every year through 2009-10, when Panini took over exclusive licensing rights to produce basketball cards.
Now, the 2025-26 flagship Topps checklist kicks off the new era with 300 cards, including 45 rookie cards and 30 combo cards, which spotlight one player but feature several of his teammates on the front. When put together, the 30 combo cards serve as a complete checklist for the set, as each of them has a list of 10 base cards on the back. The design is the same one Topps used for its 2025 Topps Baseball set.
Short-printed Golden Mirror cards will make their basketball debut, giving each card in the base set an alternate photo, a gold Topps logo on the front of the card, and a golden background on the flip side. The photos typically are more creative or fun.
Other versions include the 1/1 First Card parallel, which gives the first card of each player off the production line a special stamp.
Blackout, Clear, and Team Color Border variants will also be available, and select players will have Player Number Variations. These cards showcase a player’s number repeated throughout the background. Original images from Topps (below) showed these cards would be serial-numbered to match a player’s jersey number, but cards appearing on secondary marketplaces do not have serial numbers.
