Kon Knueppel Rookie Card Guide: Topps Chrome, Topps Flagship and the Cards That Matter

Kon Knueppel finished second to Cooper Flagg in Rookie of the Year voting, set the NBA rookie record for made threes, and did it on a Hornets team that was fun to watch for the first time in years. His rookie cards have followed. This guide covers which Kon Knueppel rookie cards matter, how the parallels work, and what they are selling for as of October 18, 2026. One thing to get straight first: his rookie cards are Topps cards, not Panini. If you are searching for a Knueppel Prizm or Select rookie, you will not find a licensed one, and the reason is explained below.

Why there is no Knueppel Prizm rookie

Topps took over the NBA and NBPA trading card license beginning with the 2025-26 season, which is Knueppel's rookie year. Panini's 2025-26 Prizm Basketball did come out (July 31, 2026, per Cardsmiths Breaks and Checklist Center), but it is an unlicensed product built around prospects and NIL players, with no NBA logos, and Knueppel is not on the checklist. The same applies to 2025-26 Panini Select. His licensed rookie cards are in 2025-26 Topps Basketball, Topps Chrome, Topps Chrome Update, Bowman U and the rest of the Topps NBA line. If someone is selling a "Knueppel Prizm RC," look closely at what it actually is.

The season that drove the cards

Knueppel went fourth overall to Charlotte in the 2025 draft after one year at Duke. In 81 regular-season games he averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists on 47.5 percent shooting and 42.3 percent from three, and led the entire league with 273 made threes, an NBA rookie record. He was Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month four straight months to open the year and won Summer League MVP before that. In the Rookie of the Year vote he took 44 first-place votes to Flagg's 56. That is as close as a second-place finish gets, and it is why his cards trade well above the typical fourth pick.

The cards that matter

2025-26 Topps Chrome #254 and the Chrome Rookie Autograph

Topps Chrome Basketball released December 18, 2025, as a 20-pack hobby box with four cards per pack, and it is the set the market treats as his main rookie. Prices from eBay sold listings as tracked by SportsCardsPro, checked October 18, 2026:

• Base #254: raw $2 to $4; PSA 9 $19 to $24; PSA 10 $91 to $139, with the market price around $105.
• Refractor #254: raw $39 to $48; PSA 9 $67 to $84; PSA 10 $625 to $700. The Refractor gem is the card most Knueppel collectors land on when they want one meaningful card.
• Topps Chrome Autographs Rookies #TCAR-KK: raw $204 to $300 through September and October 2026, with occasional outliers to $455; PSA 9 $420 to $490; PSA 10 $1,225 to $1,680, with the market price right at $1,500. This is the flagship on-card rookie auto.

Topps Chrome base parallels run Magenta /399, Teal /299, Yellow /275, Aqua /199, Blue /150, Green /99, Purple /75, Gold /50, Orange /25, Black /10, Red /5 and SuperFractor 1/1, plus unnumbered Refractors, X-Fractors, Negative and Prism Refractors and various retail-exclusive patterns (Pulsar, RayWave, Skylight, Basketball, Red White and Blue). Knueppel also appears in the Ultra Violet (UV-14), Advisory (AD-4) and Next Stop Signatures (NS-KK) inserts. CGC's March 2026 write-up on this card noted a base median grade of CGC 9 with no Pristine 10s on any version at the time, which tells you condition is not a given on this product.

For the top end of the market: a 2025-26 Topps Chrome Autograph Issue SuperFractor 1/1 (#TAIR-KK, PSA 10 with a PSA/DNA 10 auto) sold for $75,000 on Fanatics Collect on March 20, 2026.

2025-26 Topps Basketball #204

The flagship paper rookie from the November 2025 release. Raw copies are about $1 to $3, PSA 9s $12 to $16 (one outlier at $41), and the PSA 10 market price is about $46 as of October 18, 2026. This is the budget rookie and the right card if you want one of every major rookie from the class without spending real money. Parallels and the Diamante variation carry a premium.

2025-26 Topps Chrome Update #154

Topps Chrome Update released August 6, 2026, with rookies in slots 151 to 200. Knueppel is #154, with an Image Variation, a Denim Tear variation, a Chrome Autograph (TCA-KK), a Rookie Lava Lamp Autograph (RA-KK, numbered from /299 down to 1/1), a 1980-81 Topps design auto (80TBA-KK), a Future Stars auto (FS-KK), a retail-only Chromograph (CH-KK) and an NBA Debut Patch Autograph 1/1 (DPA-KK). Hobby boxes average about one autograph across 20 packs. Because Update came out after his full rookie season, the autos here are priced with the ROY race already known. It is a second rookie-year Chrome product rather than a replacement for the December Chrome card, but the Debut Patch is the single biggest Knueppel chase in any product.

Other Topps rookie-year cards

Topps Hoops, Topps Now, Topps Holiday, Bowman U and Bowman Chrome Basketball and Bowman Sapphire all carry Knueppel rookie-year cards. Numbered parallels from these sell, but the comps are thinner and the liquidity is lower. Topps Chrome inserts like Go Time (a Purple Refractor /75 sold around $40 to $60 in late December 2025 per Sports Card Investor) are collector cards more than market cards.

PSA 10 vs raw

The base Topps Chrome #254 is the clearest grading case: raw $3, PSA 10 about $105, and the gap is wider than the grading fee. The catch is that gem rate, which CGC's data suggests is not high. The Refractor is the better bet on a card you already own in clean condition, since a 10 is worth roughly fifteen times raw. On the TCAR-KK auto, a PSA 10 trades at five times raw and three times a PSA 9, so buying the auto raw to grade is a real gamble; if you want the 10, buy the 10.

What to avoid

• Anything labeled "Prizm" or "Select" rookie. Not licensed, not on the checklist.
• Panini Instant draft-night and debut cards. Print-to-order, no NBA logos, and they do not trade like rookies.
• Paying Refractor money for a base card. The base and the Refractor look similar in photos; check the back for the Refractor text.
• Raw autos at PSA 10 prices. The spread between a raw TCAR-KK and a 10 is over $1,000.

Sources: SportsCardsPro eBay sold-listing tracking, Topps Ripped's 2025-26 Topps Chrome Basketball checklist, Beckett's 2025-26 Topps Chrome Update checklist, Checklist Center's 2025-26 Panini Prizm checklist, CGC's Featured Card of the Month (March 12, 2026), Fanatics Collect and the AP's Rookie of the Year report, all checked October 18, 2026.

Where to buy

Knueppel and the rest of the 2025 class are in our NBA collection, including Topps Chrome and Topps Chrome Update hobby boxes when we have them and graded singles from our live breaks. If you collect Prizm from the Panini years, that is still in the Panini Prizm collection.