The inevitable has happened, and after watching the blowout last night, this may not be the last time we see LeBron James crowned with an NBA championship. Even though he has more haters than fans these days, collectors still love his cards like the events of his departure from Cleveland never happened. More importantly, now that he has a ring in a sport where you are measured as a player by how many you have, his cards will only be more valuable.

Back in 03-04, Topps produced a card celebrating the rookie class, and almost clairvoyantly included James, Wade and Bosh on the same card. Since last night, this card has obviously become one that every Heat fan has to have, and I completely understand why that would be the case. Additionally, most of James’ cards have been slowly climbing higher as the Finals progressed, achieving the prices that collectors have been waiting for year after year since the beginning.

Here is where the high grades on the triple are ending:

Topps Matrix Triple Rookie – James/Wade/Bosh BGS 9.5

Topps Matrix Triple Rookie – James/Wade/Bosh BGS 9.5 #2

Here are some of the other crazy prices:

03-04 LeBron James Ultimate Auto RC BGS 10

03-04 LeBron James UD Finite Auto RC BGS 9.5

03-04 Lebron James Topps Chrome RC BGS 10

There will be a lot of talk this week about how Cleveland feels, where James ranks in the history of the NBA, and a lot of other commentary about who he is as a person. Regardless of all of these discussions, he seemed to have shaken off the “choke artist” label with his dominant MVP performance this series. James was the best player on the court during the season, during the playoffs and now during the finals, and though he might be an arrogant jerk, he has earned it.

I am not more than a casual basketball fan, and I am not considering myself to be a LeBron fan, but I refuse to say that there is another player during this past season that brought his team higher than they would have ended up without him. Now that he has a championship under his belt, I have to believe that he might just get that much better without the pressure on his shoulders to get one. That is scary.

Collectors are way too late to buy in on his cards, almost by nine years, and his celebrity status overseas will only get more prominent with this win. There might be a little room for more value in the future, but it will take years and years and years. The best hope that the basketball hobby has is for UD to let him go, so he can finally have some autograph content in a Heat uniform.

Who knows when that might happen. As a result, we are stuck with the cool stuff we already had. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you consider the cards UD was able to make during their license.