1984 Star Celtics Champs

October 20, 2026

Game 4 (raw)

For sale from this set

15 more cards from this set in the shopShow all 23

The 1984 Star Celtics Champs set has 25 cards and tells the story of the 1984 NBA Finals, Boston's seven-game win over the Lakers: three cards per game, two action shots and a score card, then four cards for the title. It is the second of Star's three championship sets, after the 1983-84 Sixers Champs and before the 1985-86 Lakers Champs. Because it covers both teams, it holds five Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cards and three Magic Johnson cards: Lakers in a Celtics set.

The set at a glance

Cards	25
Numbering	1-25
Released	1984 ("STAR '84" on the fronts)
Packaging	One sealed bag of 25 cards
Sets printed (est.)	5,000 (Basketball Gold); 10,000 (starbasketballcards.com)
Rookie cards	None
Design	Green borders, yellow caption bar, Celtics logo

Card by card

Captions are as printed on the card fronts. Basketball Gold's pages on this set carry only a line per card, so the identifications below follow the BGS labels and the photos themselves.

#	Front caption	Pictured
1	Boston Celtics / 1983-84 NBA Champions	Red Auerbach with the trophy, hugged by Cedric Maxwell (checklist)
2	Game 1	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Parish
3	Game 1 (cont.)	Kevin McHale
4	Los Angeles 115 / Boston 109	Larry Bird
5	Game 2	Magic Johnson
6	Game 2 (cont.)	Danny Ainge and coach K.C. Jones
7	Boston 124 / Los Angeles 121 (OT)	Larry Bird
8	Game 3	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kevin McHale
9	Game 3 (cont.)	James Worthy
10	Los Angeles 137 / Boston 104	Magic Johnson
11	Game 4	Magic Johnson and Larry Bird
12	Game 4 (cont.)	James Worthy and Danny Ainge
13	Boston 129 / Los Angeles 125 (OT)	M.L. Carr (#30) and Cedric Maxwell (#31) celebrating
14	Game 5	Larry Bird
15	Game 5 (cont.)	Pat Riley
16	Boston 121 / Los Angeles 103	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (portrait)
17	Game 6	Robert Parish
18	Game 6 (cont.)	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
19	Los Angeles 119 / Boston 108	Dennis Johnson
20	Game 7	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
21	Game 7 (cont.)	K.C. Jones in the huddle
22	World Champions / Boston 111, L.A. 102	A Celtic celebrating in the crowd
23	Prior Celtic Championships	David Stern and Red Auerbach at the trophy presentation, Brent Musburger with the CBS microphone
24	Championship Series MVP / Larry Bird	Larry Bird
25	The Road to the Title	Boston Garden

The series ran May 27 to June 12, 1984. Game 4 in Los Angeles, the overtime game on #11-13, is the one remembered for Kevin McHale's takedown of Kurt Rambis; Boston won Game 7 at Boston Garden, 111-102, and Larry Bird was named Finals MVP.

How the set was made

Star, Robert Levin's small Pennsylvania company, held the NBA license from 1983 to 1986 and sold most of its cards in sealed polybags, one team or subset per bag. Basketball Gold calls this the second of Star's championship subsets, following the 1983-84 Sixers Champs. The fronts carry "STAR '84" at top right, a green border, the Celtics logo in a white circle and the caption in a yellow bar; the backs recap the series game by game with quotes from players and coaches, including Pat Riley's "cheap shot" remark about the McHale foul on the back of #13.

How it reached collectors is less settled. starbasketballcards.com says the set was handed out at Boston Garden after the title. Basketball Gold and Steve Taft describe Star's usual route: dealers ordering bagged team sets and subsets direct from the company. Print-run estimates differ too: Basketball Gold puts it at 5,000 of each card, starbasketballcards.com at about 10,000 sets. Neither cites a source.

What collectors should know

Condition: Basketball Gold calls it "a tough set," with usually poor centering and very little top border. Well-centered copies are the exception, so a centering subgrade is worth checking on any slab.
Sealed bags: an original sealed bag proves the cards are original, not that they are mint; you can't see the centering or surfaces of the cards underneath. Resealed Star bags exist, and a GAI bag grade rates the plastic and seals, not the cards.
Fakes: it is not one of the Type II sets (those are limited to 1985-86 #95-172, the 1986 Jordan set and 1986 Best of the New), and it was not among the ten sets remade for Shop at Home in 1997.
Grading: BGS has graded Star since December 2008 and labels the set "1984 Star Celtics Champs." PSA added it in March 2023 as "1984 Star Celtics Champions." CGC began grading 1980s Star in May 2025; its announcement publishes no set list.

The key cards

#24 Championship Series MVP, Larry Bird: the set's headline card, one of five Birds in the set (#4, #7, #11, #14 and #24).
#11 Game 4, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird: the two of them on one card from the overtime game. Basketball Gold calls it "a legendary card."
Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Magic is on #5, #10 and #11; Kareem on #2, #8, #16, #18 and #20. Steve Taft points out that the championship sets give you Bird and Magic cards for far less than their base-set cards.
#23 Prior Celtic Championships: David Stern, in his first season as commissioner, and Red Auerbach with the trophy, CBS's Brent Musburger holding the microphone.