Graded PSA 10 Gem Mint Derik Queen 2024 Topps Bowman U Now #98 Rookie RC Basketball Card

🏀 Derik Queen 2024 Topps Bowman U Now #98 Rookie RC Basketball Card — Graded PSA 10 Gem Mint — Baltimore, Maryland — University of Maryland — New Orleans Pelicans — Bowman University Now Real-Time Production — Professional Sports Authenticator Perfect Grade

🏀 The Bowman University Now format represents one of the most significant developments in the basketball card hobby in recent years — the application of the real-time production philosophy that Topps pioneered in baseball to the college basketball space, creating certified first-year cards for top prospects while they are still playing in the college game, documenting their college-era performances and appearances before the NBA Draft transforms their identity from prospect to professional. For collectors who want the earliest possible certified card for a top NBA prospect, the Bowman U Now card is that piece — produced while the player is still in college, carrying the imagery and the identity of the program they played for, and arriving in the market as the first certified collectible document of a career that the NBA Draft evaluation process has identified as one of its top priorities. Derik Queen's 2024 Topps Bowman U Now #98, graded PSA 10 Gem Mint, is the perfect-grade version of his Bowman U Now Rookie RC — the earliest certified card for a Baltimore-born big man who developed at the University of Maryland and arrived at the 2025 NBA Draft as one of the most coveted frontcourt prospects in his class. Condition: NOS.

🌟 Baltimore, Maryland — A Hometown Story

🌟 Derik Queen was born in Baltimore, Maryland — a city with a deep basketball culture, a tradition of producing professional talent, and the specific neighborhood character that Baltimore basketball shares with the city's identity as a place where athletic talent is not manufactured in AAU programs and private academies alone but is developed in the gyms and the playgrounds and the community spaces that give the city's best players their competitive edge. Baltimore has produced NBA talent throughout the sport's history, and the tradition of Maryland players developing locally before joining the Terrapins gave Queen the path from Baltimore to College Park that his basketball abilities deserved. Condition: NOS.

His basketball development in the Baltimore area produced the combination of size, skill, and basketball IQ that makes a frontcourt player projectable to the NBA level — the footwork around the basket, the ability to score in multiple ways in the post and at the elbow, the defensive positioning instincts, and the rebounding presence that teams at every level of the game identify as premium production. When the University of Maryland recruited him, they were investing in a player from their own backyard — a Baltimore-born big man who would develop under their program's coaching staff into the prospect that the 2025 NBA Draft would evaluate and select as a lottery-level talent. Condition: NOS.

🏆 University of Maryland — The Hometown Program

🏆 The University of Maryland Terrapins play at Xfinity Center in College Park, less than an hour from Baltimore — close enough that Queen's family, his community, and the broader Baltimore basketball world could follow his development in real time and root for a player who was one of their own representing a program that is Maryland's flagship athletic institution. Playing at Maryland gave Queen the visibility in the Big Ten Conference — one of the most competitive and most watched conferences in college basketball — that his skills demanded as a vehicle for the national exposure and the draft evaluation process that would eventually lead to his NBA selection. Condition: NOS.

The Big Ten configuration that Maryland has operated within since joining the conference in 2014 exposes the Terrapins to some of the most physically demanding frontcourt play in college basketball — the conference's emphasis on physical play and high-level athleticism at every position provides exactly the kind of competition that develops a frontcourt prospect into an NBA-ready contributor. Queen's performances against Big Ten competition built the body of work that NBA scouts traveled to see and that draft analysts converted into the projection that ultimately placed him among the most coveted available players in his draft class. Condition: NOS.

⭐ New Orleans Pelicans — A Draft-Night Trade Brings Him Home

⭐ Derik Queen was selected 13th overall in the 2025 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks, who immediately traded his draft rights to the New Orleans Pelicans as part of a draft-night deal. The move placed Queen alongside Zion Williamson in a Pelicans frontcourt being built around size and athleticism, giving the Baltimore product an immediate opportunity to contribute to a franchise investing significant draft capital in his upside. Condition: NOS.

🏅 Bowman U Now #98 — The First Certified Card

🏅 The Topps Bowman University Now product produces cards in real time during the college basketball season — capturing game performances, season milestones, and significant moments from the college careers of the players who will populate the next NBA Draft class with certified cards available while the player is still playing in college. The #98 designation places Queen at card 98 in the Bowman U Now production series — his specific number within the format that was his first appearance in the Topps certified card universe. Condition: NOS.

At PSA 10 Gem Mint, this card represents the perfect-grade version of Queen's first certified card — the earliest-dated, highest-graded version of the first professional collectible document in his name. For collectors building a Derik Queen collection from its earliest possible entry point, the PSA 10 Bowman U Now #98 is not just the first card — it is the perfect first card, the version that sets the condition standard for everything that follows. Condition: NOS.

🏀⭐ Derik Queen. Baltimore, Maryland. University of Maryland. New Orleans Pelicans. The hometown big man who went from College Park to a draft-night trade into the Pelicans frontcourt. 2024 Topps Bowman U Now #98. PSA 10 Gem Mint. The first card. The perfect grade. Ready for your collection. Condition: NOS.