Open enough 2025-26 Donruss Basketball and most of what lands in your hands is base cards, common parallels, and a handful of inserts that look nice but don't move the secondary market. Downtown is the exception.
It's the one insert hobby analysts have pointed to as the release's defining chase, the card that could decide whether this unlicensed Donruss experiment actually works for collectors.
Earlier coverage on this release already walked through the full insert and parallel lineup. This one goes deeper on just Downtown: the checklist, the scarcity tiers, and why it's carrying more weight than any other card in the box.
Here's what's actually confirmed about the insert driving this release's chase.
Downtown isn't new to the hobby, but it is new to flagship Donruss Basketball specifically. The insert previously lived in Donruss Optic and One and One, and 2025-26 marks its first appearance in the mainline Donruss product.
That move matters because it brings an already-recognized chase concept into a release that needed one. Collectors who already associate Downtown's city-themed artwork with scarcity and strong resale value in other Panini products carried that expectation straight into this set.
Downtown's checklist runs 20 cards and mixes established NBA stars with the 2025 rookie class. Confirmed names include Giannis Antetokounmpo, Cade Cunningham, Trae Young, Ja Morant, and Derrick Rose on the veteran side.
The rookie half includes VJ Edgecombe, Carter Bryant, Tre Johnson III, Joan Beringer, Khaman Maluach, Jeremiah Fears, Hugo Gonzalez, Nique Clifford, Hansen Yang, Will Riley, Walter Clayton Jr., Derik Queen, Thomas Sorber, Cedric Coward, and Noa Essengue. That split gives the insert two very different kinds of chasers in one 20-card lineup.
Downtown is a Hobby-exclusive super short print, meaning it isn't showing up in retail configurations the way base cards and standard parallels do. On top of the base version, Downtown carries its own Gold parallel numbered to 10 copies and a Gold Vinyl parallel that exists as a true 1-of-1.
Those two tiers give Downtown the same case-hit structure as the release's other top SSP, Slammy, but Downtown's longer history across Panini's catalog gives it the stronger name recognition of the two. A low-numbered Downtown pull is worth moving straight into EVORETRO's combination-lock toploader storage box rather than leaving it loose in a stack.
Hobby analysts covering this release have been direct about it: without NBA logos or official team branding, Donruss needed something collectors would chase regardless of licensing status, and Downtown is that card. Its distinctive artwork and tight print run give it value that doesn't depend on jersey logos the way a plain base card would.
That's a real test of brand equity over licensing, and early signals suggest collectors are still willing to chase Downtown even in its unlicensed, airbrushed form.
Giannis, Cade Cunningham, and Trae Young represent the steadier long-term holds on this checklist, since established stars tend to carry value independent of a single season's performance. A Downtown pull of one of those names is a safer long-term piece to protect and hold.
VJ Edgecombe, Carter Bryant, and the rest of the rookie names are the speculative side of the same insert. Their value depends heavily on how this season actually plays out, which makes them higher risk but potentially higher reward than the veteran cards on the same checklist.
Night Moves and Slammy both run at similar print-run tiers to Downtown within this release, and all three draw from overlapping rookie and veteran names. What separates Downtown is reputation: it's the one name in this trio that collectors already recognized before this release ever printed a single card.
That existing brand recognition is a big part of why Downtown pulls tend to sell faster and closer to asking price than a comparably scarce Night Moves or Slammy card from the same box.
A Giannis or Cade Cunningham Downtown pull numbered to 10 or lower is a strong grading candidate, since a graded population report on a tight print run tends to support stronger resale pricing than a raw card alone. The 1-of-1 Gold Vinyl tier is really only sold as a graded or at minimum authenticated piece once it changes hands, given how much a single scratch can shift value on a card with zero duplicates.
Rookie Downtown pulls are a tougher grading call, since paying grading fees on a speculative rookie name before the season settles can turn into money spent on a card that hasn't proven its value yet. Holding a rookie Downtown pull raw in solid protection until performance catches up to the hype is the more conservative approach for most collectors.
The confirmed checklist runs 20 cards.
No, Downtown is confirmed as a Hobby-exclusive short print.
A Gold parallel numbered to 10 and a Gold Vinyl parallel that's a 1-of-1.
No, 2025-26 is Downtown's first appearance in flagship Donruss Basketball after previously running in Optic and One and One.
A card with this much brand recognition and this tight a print run deserves better than a loose sleeve on the way to a binder. EVORETRO's graded card sleeves keep a fresh Downtown pull protected the moment it comes out of the pack.
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