Jason Williams landed the one-of-a-kind Cooper Flagg NBA debut patch card — and now has multimillion-dollar offers on the table. Williams, a machine shop owner from Clover, South Carolina, suddenly finds himself holding one of the most coveted cards in the sports memorabilia world. The father of five entered a break of Topps Chrome Update Basketball on Monday and landed the one-of-one Cooper Flagg debut patch card, which has already drawn several multimillion-dollar offers. Williams told CNN the moment he realized the card was his was surreal. “When it happened, I mean, I went to the floor like a baby in the fetal position,” Williams said. “I mean, it was just emotional because I knew. I knew what had happened. It took me a few seconds for it to register in my mind, but it was just emotions took over me.” A “break” is a popular way for collectors to buy sports cards without purchasing an entire box. Typically conducted via livestream, participants purchase the rights to a specific team or player and receive the eligible cards pulled for that team or player from a set number of packs or boxes. Williams paid US$515 for the Dallas Mavericks in a break conducted by Rhody Breakers, based in Rhode Island. “I was watching it on my phone sitting in the living room,” Williams said. “My 12-year old was getting ready to go to bed. We knew a card that was coming was gonna be a pretty big one. And I knew I had a big team in that break.” Flagg’s card is one-of-a-kind and features a patch from the jersey he wore in his NBA debut. As the breaker got closer to revealing the highly sought-after card, Williams decided to move the livestream from his phone to a bigger screen. “I was like, ‘hey, we need to put this on the big screen’ and my wife was like, ‘OK, whatever, do what you need to do,’” Williams said. “So I put it on.” Then the card collectors around the hobby had been chasing appeared on the screen. It belonged to Williams. “It was intense,” he said. Williams, who turned 50 in July, said he has collected sports cards on and off since he was 12. He has long enjoyed opening packs himself but discovered online breaks about six years ago. “It was totally new to me when I’ve seen it, and I’m old school, so the internet stuff I ain’t really into. But this one I figured out, and it was an easy way to do it,” Williams said. “And this one was a $515 break, so it was an expensive one to me, but well worth it.” Williams said the adrenaline was so intense that he didn’t sleep that night. “I got in my truck and I drove to the store and got me a Monster Energy drink,” Williams said. “I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night.” Instead, Williams stayed up talking with others in the online chat before going to work at 5 a.m. “I had to just get my mind off of it, but the excitement level and the adrenaline was so intense that, I mean, I don’t even know how to explain that,” he said. Now Williams has another decision to make: What does he do with the card? The Dallas Mavericks have offered lower-level season tickets for 32 years and a package of other perks in exchange for the card. There are also multimillion-dollar offers from others interested in acquiring it. For now, he says he’s in no rush to make a deal. “Right now, I’m not even looking at the money,” Williams said. “For me, I am looking forward to the experiences that I’m gonna get out of this and the things that my family and my kids are going to get to experience that are memories for a lifetime.” By Andy Scholes, CNN
