Bob Ross Basketball: Flagg by the Lighthouse, Knueppel in the Pines

Cooper Flagg has found an unusual place to load up a dunk: beside a lighthouse, under a bright moon, with the sea rolling in behind him. His Topps x Bob Ross autograph preview replaces the arena with a painted coast, frames it in deep red and puts blue ink across a pale strip of surf. The pictured 10/10 stamp is almost the quietest thing on the card.

2025–26 Topps x Bob Ross: The Joy of Basketball is available November 16, 2026. Its 105-player checklist mixes rookies, current stars and legends, with selected-subject autographs, landscape-driven inserts and a few woodland visitors. These are not ordinary player photographs with a tree dropped into the corner. The landscape is the setting.

Flagg’s coast and Knueppel’s golden woods

Flagg’s coastal card and Kon Knueppel’s /25 preview make a persuasive pair. Flagg gets a dark sky, a lighthouse and a red outer frame. Knueppel gets tall trees, a golden atmosphere and a yellow frame that picks up the painted light. Both players have the ball above their heads, but the scenery gives the two images very different moods.

Knueppel’s white Charlotte uniform is especially effective against the warm background. The long vertical trunks echo his raised arms, while the blue autograph supplies a cooler color low on the card. Flagg’s scene is more theatrical: the lighthouse occupies the left edge, and moonlight pulls the eye toward the water behind his shoulders.

Stephen Curry’s 2/5 autograph preview uses a lower dribbling pose, leaving the painted sky open above him. The broad pale autograph area sits across the bottom of the landscape. Topps says selected base subjects have autographs numbered /75 or lower; the checklist includes Flagg, Knueppel, Curry, LeBron James, Victor Wembanyama and numerous retired stars.

Wembanyama and Russell show the base idea

Wembanyama opens the base checklist at card 1. His white San Antonio uniform stands against evergreens, a lake and a blue sky, with the pictured Midnight Black 1/1 frame giving the scene a dark outer edge. The rounded opening feels like a painted window rather than a rectangular arena photograph.

Bill Russell’s card 101 goes greener. A stream curls through the woodland scene, and the green frame connects naturally with the Boston uniform. Russell stands almost quietly in the middle of it, holding the ball. Beside Flagg’s coastal drama, this is a pleasantly unhurried basketball card.

The 105-player base checklist reaches across generations: Flagg is 53, Knueppel 54, Dylan Harper 61, while Russell, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Walt Frazier and Oscar Robertson close out cards 101–105. That range gives the landscape concept several kinds of basketball history to work with.

Peapod has entered the paint

Jalen Brunson’s Peapod the Squirrel SP is the wonderfully odd member of the preview group. Brunson is airborne in blue and orange, a fallen branch crosses the foreground, and a squirrel occupies a substantial part of the right side. The animal is not a tiny hidden symbol. It has arrived with confidence.

The ten-card Peapod checklist includes Brunson, Flagg, Harper, LeBron, Nikola Jokić and Magic Johnson among its subjects. This is a separate short-print series, rather than an animal appearing on every base card. Topps connects it to Ross’s fondness for the squirrel that accompanied him while painting.

Beauty Is Everywhere takes a different route. Dirk Nowitzki’s preview uses an aurora and white-edged waves around his Dallas photograph, with a rough painted lower edge instead of the regular frame. The checklist has 20 subjects in this SP series, including Nowitzki, Larry Bird, Flagg and Knueppel. For a landscape-led collection, Dirk’s night sky is one of the strongest reasons to look beyond the numbered borders.

Three insert ideas, three basketball skills

Over the Mountains has ten subjects, including LeBron, Shawn Kemp, Dominique Wilkins, Vince Carter and Flagg. LeBron’s preview puts him high above the mountain ridge, with tall lettering stretching toward the ball. The landscape makes the insert’s dunking theme literal.

Budding Talents brings 15 rookies together. Flagg’s preview uses two images—a large portrait and a smaller shooting pose—over a cool blue mountain scene. Art of the Dribble supplies a ten-player group spanning Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Dončić, Steve Nash, John Stockton and other ball handlers. The three series organize the checklist around basketball roles instead of asking every insert to perform the same visual trick.

The artist gets his own Bob Ross Flagship SSP, listed as BR in the checklist. That is a distinct artist card, alongside the NBA subjects and the two SP families.

What November 16 brings

The official release page announces November 16 availability. Topps’ Collector’s Box checklist is available; pricing, the opening hour and box contents have not yet been announced.

Our favorite preview is Flagg by the lighthouse, narrowly ahead of Knueppel’s golden woods. Both use the player’s pose and the painted setting together, rather than treating the background as decoration. Brunson and his enormous woodland companion win a different category entirely. Peapod appears to have secured excellent courtside access.