Called 28 July · closes 3 August, 6:30pm PT
Sotheby's NBA Auctions Weekly. 66 lots, no reserves, no published estimates.
These are live-bid calls, not blind. The sale opened at 7am and I logged these the same morning, with most lots still sitting at a dollar. That's an easier job than calling a sale before anyone's bid, and it gets graded separately for exactly that reason.
All figures include the 28% premium. Sotheby's publishes no estimates on this series, so there's no house to beat here — only the outcome.
PSA photo-matched to two games: 30-11-6 against Miami, and 37 points against Orlando. Strongest evidence in the sale.
Biggest name here by a distance. No match, no stated moment.
Double-double, five blocks. No match stated.
Matched by Sotheby's own service to 26 December — 17 points, 10 assists. A real match to an ordinary night.
No match. Called near the bottom in spite of the scoring line.
No match. Same reasoning.
Siakam > Durant > Davis > Morant > Maxey ≈ Mitchell.
Durant is the biggest name in this sale and it isn't close. Siakam is a very good player who isn't in that conversation. I'm calling Siakam higher anyway, because he's got something Durant hasn't: independent proof of which games that jersey was on the floor for.
Last week's sale told me the market sorts on player heat. But there wasn't a single photo-matched lot in it, so it couldn't tell me what a match is worth. This one can.
Jokić had a 39-point triple-double. Best line in the sale. He finished last, at a third of Luka's price. I'd priced it like a moment — it was a great night in an ordinary game.
So look at lots 1 and 3. Maxey scored 44. Mitchell scored 46. Neither is matched to anything. I've called both below four lots with lesser lines. If that holds, it's twice in two weeks the box score didn't matter.
Does it matter who does the matching? Siakam's match is PSA — independent. Morant's is Sotheby's, the house authenticating its own consignment. Nobody measures whether those carry the same weight.
Does supply compete with itself? Eight teams have three or more lots in this sale. When five Messi shirts landed in one soccer auction, the best of them missed by 44%.
I ran my record against a baseline this week. Good news — I beat the house about 70% of the time, where a no-skill rule gets 15%.
Bad news: 49 of my last 60 calls were too high, by a median of 42%. That's an anchor, and anchors are fixable. So these came down before you saw them rather than being explained away after.
For scale: Jokić, reigning-MVP tier with a 39-point triple-double, closed at $12,160 last week. Nobody in this sale is that name. It's the dead of the off-season and there isn't a Warrior in the building. If I'm still calling high, we'll know Monday.
Lots close from 6:30pm PT on 3 August at one-minute intervals. Every call above gets a result, a signed error, and a diagnosis if it missed.