Victor Wembanyama Tops Topps With 40-20 Game 1 Debut
Victor Wembanyama topped Topps with a 40-point, 20-rebound Game 1 in the NBA West finals on Monday, then buried a logo-adjacent 3-pointer in crunch time. At 22, the 7-foot-4 Spurs star turned his conference finals debut into a business event as much as a box-score line.
Game 1 against Oklahoma City
The performance came against the defending champs and reigning two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, which is the kind of stage that usually separates a hot night from a market-moving one. Wembanyama did both: he controlled the glass, scored at volume and delivered the late shot that tends to replay across highlights, ticket demand and collectible sales.
His jersey already ranks fourth among all NBA players this season, behind Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić and Jalen Brunson, and ahead of LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and Gilgeous-Alexander. That placement puts him in a rare spot for a player this young, with three names ahead of him and three behind him in one of the league’s most visible retail raceboards.
Jerseys, cards, and Paris
Wembanyama’s commercial footprint reaches beyond apparel. He signed with Louis Vuitton in 2024, has an exclusive memorabilia deal with Fanatics and is already the athlete with the sixth-most graded cards ever. For sellers and collectors, that mix is the difference between a great stat line and a player whose every big playoff game can ripple through inventory.
The Spurs have built around that reach in public ways, too. Last week they announced nine developers to oversee a new $1.3 billion stadium and sports district project, and this week they said they will play regular-season NBA games in Paris in January after a successful Week Paris tour last February. Those moves fit a franchise leaning into Wembanyama as a global business asset, not just a local star.
NBC at 8:30 p.m. ET
The league is also in the first year of its eight-year, $70-some billion TV rights deals, which keeps premium playoff inventory under a brighter spotlight than usual. A 40-point, 20-rebound debut in the conference finals helps justify that scale, and it gives the Spurs and the NBA a face that can sell to sponsors, broadcasters and the collectibles market at the same time.
Game 2 between the Spurs and Thunder is scheduled for tonight on NBC at 8:30 p.m. ET, and that is the next test that matters. If Wembanyama repeats anything close to Monday’s output, the conversation around him will keep moving from breakout to baseline.
