Tag: NBA Top Shot

Daryl Morey bought a Ben Simmons Top Shot moment and NBA fans are reading way too into it

Does this really mean anything?

Alright, look NBA Twitter: we’re going to spend the next few months speculating and buzzing about whether the Philadelphia 76ers will hang on to Ben Simmons or trade him, so I get that you all want to start things up now.

But this? This is a little much.

The “this” I’m referring to is the fact that someone on Twitter noticed Sixers president Daryl Morey recently purchased an NBA TopShot moment featuring Simmons. He spent quite a bit of money on it, too, $4,444 to be exact, on a Simmons Dunk Holo Icon from Series 2 that’s only 1 of 28 “printings.”

So what does it all mean? I’d say a whole lot of nothing, maybe he’s just a collector who saw a cool thing and wanted to buy it for his large collection. But some fans didn’t see it that way.

WATCH: NBA Top Shot drops Miles Bridges dunk hype video

NBA Top Shot dropped a great hype video narrated by Stephen A. Smith for Miles Bridges on Thursday. You can check it out here.

If you don’t know what NBA Top Shot is, well, I guess you avoided a stage of the pandemic quarantine that I did not. For those who aren’t aware of Top Shot, without going into too much detail, it is a form of NFT (non-fungible token) for the NBA, where you can “buy” a moment from an NBA game.

As you might expect, Miles Bridges is a great Top Shot player, given his penchant for huge dunks and playing alongside one of the most popular players in the league, LaMelo Ball.

Top Shot put out an awesome hype video for Bridges’ moments on Thursday, narrated by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, and it was great.

You can watch it below:

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NBA Top Shot latest pack drop is extremely expensive

$$$$$$$$$$$$

We’ve seen NBA Top Shot pack drops that have been for $99 (a “premium” drop) and those celebrating All-Star weekend for just $14.

(Also, if you have no idea what we’re talking about here, NBA Top Shot is the biggest NFT fad in sports right now, and fans continue to spend money on official highlights from the league. Here’s a Top Shot explainer to help!)

Now, there’s a new pack drop on Thursday afternoon: it’s 36,378 packs of “rare” moments from the 2021 All-Star game. Each pack will have seven moments (which includes one from the ASG), one per collector and it’ll cost … $229.

Yow. Also in the fine print? You must have at least three moments before joining the drop.

Good luck!

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The most expensive NBA Top Shot moments so far

Top Shot has taken the basketball world by storm. For those that still don’t know what it is, this is how Market Watch explains it in this piece: NBA Top Shot is an online-only marketplace where users can buy, sell and trade NBA highlights. These …

Top Shot has taken the basketball world by storm.

For those that still don’t know what it is, this is how Market Watch explains it in this piece:

NBA Top Shot is an online-only marketplace where users can buy, sell and trade NBA highlights. These highlights, or “moments,” are owned by users through a unique number. They’re basically virtual sports cards, but instead of a picture of a player with statistics on the back, you get a video highlight of a play like a LeBron James dunk or a Steph Curry 3-pointer.

Pretty cool, right?

Anyway, because Top Shot has taken off in popularity so quickly, “moments” are starting to go for very expensive prices, particularly those featuring superstar players.

Below, check out the 20 most expensive Top Shot moments… so far.

Isaiah Roby with another Top Shot-worthy poster dunk in win over Spurs

OKC Thunder forward Isaiah Roby may earn himself a Top Shot moment with his dunk against the San Antonio Spurs.

Back on Feb. 22, Oklahoma City Thunder big Isaiah Roby came across a Tweet of a fan saying he had gotten Roby’s dunk over Nikola Vucevic as an NBA Top Shot moment. Roby responded that he’d like to get connected to these highlights.

He might get his chance sooner than later. The second-year Thunder player threw down a poster dunk over 7-foot-1 center Jakob Poeltl on Thursday night in the 107-102 win over the San Antonio Spurs.

In transition, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander flicked a pass to Theo Maledon, who received the ball and glanced back at the free throw line to the trailing Roby. There was nothing but space between him and Poeltl.

A moment too late, Poeltl decided to make a business decision and move out of the way — but by then, he was already caught in the air.

Take a look at another couple angles:

So, yeah. A very nice dunk, one that can compete with Darius Bazley for the Thunder’s best dunk of the past week.

That takes us to NBA Top Shot, video highlights created by blockchain technology. It’s like a combination of trading cards and cryptocurrency that gives the owner property rights to a highlight card. (See For The Win for a more comprehensive breakdown).

“My understanding is, it’s kind of like trading cards but video playback,” Roby said. “If it’s something that’s going to continue to be as big as it is right now, the way it’s going up right now, I definitely want to get involved — I think I saw a LeBron Top Shot go for a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

The Athletic reported on Feb. 15 that there had been almost $70 million in sales. A week later, USA TODAY reported that there were more than $37 million in sales over a single 24-hour period on Feb. 22.

It’s definitely ballooning.

Roby said he needs to learn more about the program before putting money into it.

“I still don’t totally understand it, and I like to learn about stuff before I get invested in it,” he said. “But shoot, who knows.”

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NBA Top Shot is trying a new format for its latest All-Star pack drop

Here we go!

The NBA All-Star festivities are kicking off on Thursday night with LeBron James and Kevin Durant picking teams, but NBA Top Shot will be celebrating with a new pack drop with a new distribution twist.

Fresh off of a premium drop a week ago and a pre-order style of ordering for a less expensive pack last weekend, Top Shot announced a new drop known as “Seeing Stars,” which will feature moments from All-Star players this season.

The twist: Per their blog, the pack drops will be split into three different times on Thursday and Friday, and that it’s one pack per user (so you can’t get three in the three drops):

Choose the drop time that makes the most sense for you, then hop in a queue at your own pace. We want users to enjoy the pre-All-Star Game buzz, so rest assured that the Moments available across any of the three drop times are the same and collectors are only allowed to pick up one single pack over the course of the three drops, no matter when or how often they join a queue.

It’s $14 per pack, with 183,258 packs available, with the drop times as follows: Thursday (March 4) at 5 p.m. PST, Friday (March 5) at 9 a.m. PST, and Friday at 5 p.m PST.

Good luck!

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An NBA Top Shot premium pack drop has fans and users buzzing

Oh boy.

The NBA Top Shot phenomenon has reached a fever pitch as users and fans continue to pay a ton of money for digital highlights — just the other day, someone purchased a LeBron James highlight for $208,000.

Yes, this is all very strange, the idea of buying a digital highlight that you can watch on YouTube. Think of it as buying a basketball card that isn’t printed on paper!

On Thursday, everyone started buzzing about a new drop of a pack — that’s a group of random highlights you can purchase in the hopes of finding some rare ones. This one’s a “premium pack” with some limited edition highlights from the site’s Series 2 — Top Shot says they’ll have six moments in each pack and highlights from names like Trae Young, Ja Morant and Anthony Davis will be mixed in.

The cost? A cool $99.

What time will it be? Set your alarms for 12 p.m. PST.

In case you’ve never participated in one of these before, you can join a drop and are placed in a waiting room. When the drop begins, users are randomly assigned a place in the queue to purchase a limited number of packs that are available.

Good luck!

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NBA Top Shot collectors pay $208K for LeBron James moment

A moment featuring LeBron James sold for $208,000 earlier this week on the NBA’s new blockchain collectible site, NBA Top Shot.

LeBron James collectibles have always been among some of the most valuable in the world sports collectibles. And the same concept rings true in the latest model for NBA collectibles, NBA Top Shot. In the span of one day, two LeBron James moments on Top Shot sold for six-figure sums, including one which sold on Monday for a stunning $208,000, which is the largest single sale so far on Top Shot.

The moment that was bought for the high number was LeBron’s iconic dunk against Nemanja Bjelica in the early part of last year’s championship season for the Lakers. The moment is one of just 49 moments made, according to Top Shot.

There has been a lot of work done recently on what NBA Top Shot is that would do a better job than I would of describing what it is in-depth. The value of the individual moments has skyrocketed in recent weeks and hype around the release of the individual packs has made them events of their own.

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An NBA Top Shot highlight of an epic LeBron James dunk just sold for $200K

WOW.

NBA Top Shot — the official league highlights with blockchain technology that have turned into the latest sports collecting craze, don’t worry we explain it all for you here — continues to generate a ton of money in sales whether it’s people buying “packs” or purchasing rare cuts in their marketplace.

We’ve seen a few highlights sell for $100,000, and now there’s a record-breaker that sold for $208,000 (!!!). It’s a moment in which LeBron James dunked all over Nemanja Bjelica as the Sacramento Kings forward attempted to take a charge back in 2019.

It was purchased by a group of investors … and who knows what it could sell for if the demand continues to grow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdD3x8AbJTA

Yup. This is wild.

https://youtu.be/e2ocoIZSIyY

Everything you need to know about NBA Top Shot, the latest sports collecting craze

Let’s dive in.

Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world.

You may have seen it trending on Twitter or talked about among friends or seen headlines: something about “NBA Top Shot” and A LOT of money being exchanged over the internet.

What’s it all about? That’s what we’re here to do, to help you answer any and all questions you have about the new sports collecting craze that has taken over, which has basketball fans and others buzzing about it.

So let’s dive into it and see if we can fully answer your queries.

What is NBA Top Shot?

Using blockchain technology, fans can buy and sell NBA video highlights that are licensed by the league.

Wait, wait. Go back. Blockchain?

Sorry. Blockchains are databases of information linked together that can be used record ownership or transactions of a product. It can’t be changed and it’s stored in a way so that not one person controls the information — say, when someone buys something — and it’s transparent to all users.

I think I’ve heard of that being used with Bitcoin.

Yep!

OK, so what does cryptocurrency have to do with NBA highlights?

It’s the technology being used for those who get these highlights and put them into a very secured, encrypted “wallet.”

Can’t I just watch these highlights on YouTube and Twitter?

Yes, you can. But the way this works is that you own an officially licensed highlight like you would own a trading card. And some of those highlights might be limited to just a few “printings,” which drives the price up.

But how is there value in that?

That’s probably the question that I struggle to answer. There’s value in anything that other people value thanks to supply and demand, right? If there are a ton of collectors who see a dollar value in a super-rare, officially-licensed highlight of a big-name NBA player that others want, there’s a market for it.

For a better answer, here’s Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on his blog:

I get to enjoy knowing I own my Maxi Klieber dunk Moment, along with knowing the serial number and much more. Some people might complain that I can get the same video on the internet anywhere any time and watch it. Well guess what, I can get the same picture on any traditional, physical card on the internet and print it out, and that doesn’t change the value of the card.

And when I want to sell the card, NBA Top Shots offers a marketplace I can sell it in, which by virtue of the site being created on Flow BlockChain offers me the ability to see every Maxi card being offered, the serial number, its price and more. All the foundations required for a consumer friendly, efficient marketplace. But I do have to add that I don’t know why anyone would sell a Maxi Moment. Maxi is a top 10 defender in the NBA, just saying !

How do I go about getting these?

The Top Shot site offers a couple of different ways: you can buy various priced “packs” of highlights, which drop at certain times. Or you can go find highlights offered by other users who are selling them.

Full disclosure: I have tried to buy a pack and fallen well short:

How much money is exchanging hands here?

A LOT!

For example, last year, a LeBron James dunk went for $3,800.

Per the Baltimore Sun, a Zion Williamson block went for $100,000 and a James swat also went for that sum.

Holy [expletive].

I know.

Does the NBA make money off of this?

Yes, and so does Dapper Labs, the company that runs Top Shot.

From The Athletic:

Whenever users can cash out, it won’t be for free. Dapper Labs said it charges the $25 fee to cover the costs it’s charged by banks for the wire transfers, but doesn’t profit from withdrawals. Instead, the company generates its revenue from the initial retail sale of every pack and from collecting a fee on peer-to-peer sales. Users that cash-out do so via a wire transfer to a U.S. bank or in the form of cryptocurrency transferred to a Coinbase or Ethereum digital wallet.

The NBA also gets a cut of peer-to-peer sales. The league and Dapper Labs, along with the players union, started talking a few years ago and all work jointly to create the highlight cards.

Are players into it?

It appears so, yes!

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