Now that the best team in the NBA during the past season has been knocked out of the playoffs, it sets up a possibility of pitting two of the most collectable stars in the game against each other. If the Heat manage to pull off two more victories, the NBA finals this year could end up being the Durant and James show.

Lebron, since his rookie season has been one of the most widely cheered and jeered players in the NBA, and collectors have latched on. This season, after another huge run for Kevin Durant, the two of them have been neck and neck with Griffin and Bryant as the best autographs to pull in terms of active players. Obviously Jordan still trumps everyone by a ton.

Recent sales have been astronomical:

Lebron James / Kevin Durant Exqusite Dual Patch Auto

Kevin Durant Exquisite Rookie Patch Auto 2 Color

Lebron James Exquisite Limited Logos Auto

Kevin Durant / Kevin Garnett Black Dual Patch Auto

With Durant already secured in the Finals, and possibly primed to win his first ring, there could be an unseating of sorts, especially with the lack of confidence in LeBron’s ability to win the big games. Durant’s big cards are already selling at the level that James’ cards sold at this point in his career, and though he doesn’t have the MVPs or the stats to match the King, he is well on his way.

The issue with both players is that neither have many recent cards that live up to what Upper Deck used to produce in Exquisite over the years. Basketball, if not only because of a strong overseas presence, is practically a high end or bust type of sport. Exquisite STARTED in basketball for a reason, and since the point when Panini took over the exclusive license, nothing has matched its prominence and dominance. Outside of rookie and 1/1 content, its hard to reach the heights UD used to get. Its gotten so bad that petitions have started on message boards to bring back UD to basketball, and cases of old UD products are drying up like never before.

Panini’s idea is that they want to bring the low(er) end element back to basketball, without realizing how much of the money is shored up in people who ONLY buy high end. It’s a different group of collectors in basketball, and yet it seems as though Panini wants to treat it like its Football cards. Here and there they have had success , but its usually well after a product has been released and sat on retailers’ shelves for months. The high end singles do sell, but its rarely more successful than it was previously. A lot of this has to do with the lower price point of the boxes, but hideous design work, poor customer service, and lack of valuable and chase content in the high end stuff. Blake Griffin’s NT 1/1 may have sold for the price of a car, but the rest of the product was crap.

Luckily for collectors, there is still a possibility that a best case scenario could happen. The Heat aren’t out of it yet, and there is quite a good chance that those old boxes of UD could still go up with a ring for either player.