1985-86 Star Lakers Champs

October 20, 2026

#8 Kareem, 1985 Series MVP (raw)

For sale from this set

The 1985-86 Star Lakers Champs set has 18 cards and covers the 1985 NBA Finals, the Lakers' six-game win over Boston that ended at Boston Garden: a checklist, one card per game, a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar MVP card, six stats cards, a "Title Fight?" scuffle card and three celebration cards, the last of them the famous Ronald Reagan card. It is the third and last of Star's championship sets. The fronts say "STAR '86," and catalogs list it as 1985-86.

The set at a glance

Cards	18
Numbering	1-18
Released	1986 ("STAR '86" on the fronts)
Packaging	One sealed bag of 18 cards
Sets printed (est.)	5,000 (Basketball Gold); 10,000 (starbasketballcards.com)
Rookie cards	None
Design	Off-white borders, purple captions, Lakers logo

Card by card

Captions are as printed on the card fronts. The Celtics are well represented: Bird is on #2 and #9, Dennis Johnson #3, Danny Ainge #4 and #11, Kevin McHale #6, Robert Parish #8 and K.C. Jones #13.

#	Front caption	Pictured
1	Lakers 1985 NBA Champs / Checklist	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and owner Jerry Buss with the trophy
2	Boston 148 L.A. 114 / Game 1	Larry Bird
3	L.A. 109 Boston 102 / Game 2	Dennis Johnson
4	L.A. 136 Boston 111 / Game 3	Danny Ainge
5	Boston 107 L.A. 105 / Game 4	Byron Scott
6	L.A. 120 Boston 111 / Game 5	Kevin McHale
7	L.A. 111 Boston 100 / Game 6	Magic Johnson
8	Kareem / 1985 Series MVP	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Parish
9	Playoff Highs	Larry Bird
10	Top Playoff Scorers	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
11	Title Fight?	Michael Cooper and Danny Ainge
12	Laker Champ Series Stats	Pat Riley
13	Boston Champ Series Stats	K.C. Jones
14	L.A. Playoff Stats	Magic Johnson
15	Boston Playoff Stats	Lakers and Celtics under the basket
16	The Road to the Title	Bob McAdoo with the trophy
17	Prior World Champs I	A team celebration with the trophy and balloons
18	Prior World Champs II	President Ronald Reagan with the Lakers at the White House

The series ran May 27 to June 9, 1985. Game 1 was the "Memorial Day Massacre," Boston by 34; the Lakers won four of the next five and took the title in Game 6 at Boston Garden, their first Finals win over the Celtics after eight losses. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 38, was Finals MVP. The Reagan card matches the team's Rose Garden visit to the White House on June 10, 1985, the day after the clincher.

Note on #18: the printed caption is "Prior World Champs II." BGS labels the card "Lakers Champs II / Ronald Reagan," and checklists, ours included, tend to follow the label.

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 third and final championship subset, after the 1983-84 Sixers Champs and the 1984 Celtics Champs. The design follows Star's base sets: off-white borders, "STAR '86" at top right, the Lakers logo in a white circle at lower left and the caption in purple. Beckett describes the backs as game and series summaries.

starbasketballcards.com says the set was mostly distributed at the Forum in 1986; Basketball Gold and Steve Taft describe dealers ordering bagged sets direct from Star. Basketball Gold estimates 5,000 of each card, starbasketballcards.com about 10,000 sets; neither cites a source.

Star printed several products on one sheet. Basketball Gold notes its sheets usually held 100 cards and could include baseball cards, and gives the example of the Last 11 ROYs, All-Rookie Team, Kareem and Coaches sets sharing a sheet with its Dale Murphy and Rod Carew baseball sets. The uncut strip in the gallery below shows the full Lakers Champs set with a 1986 Court Kings Patrick Ewing and a Tom Seaver baseball card at the end.

What collectors should know

Condition: Basketball Gold says the set is "generally in pretty good shape with a few exceptions," a contrast with the tough-to-center Celtics Champs.
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 "1985-86 Star Lakers Champs." PSA's March 2023 expansion list does not name this set (or the 1985-86 base set), though PSA-graded copies now trade. CGC began grading 1980s Star in May 2025; its announcement publishes no set list.

The key cards

#18 Prior World Champs II, Ronald Reagan: the headline card. Basketball Gold calls it "the famous card of the late President Ronald Reagan," and starbasketballcards.com calls it the only basketball card ever issued with a photo of President Reagan.
#8 Kareem, 1985 Series MVP: Kareem with Robert Parish. Kareem is also on #1 with Jerry Buss and on #10.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird: Magic on #7 (the Game 6 clincher) and #14; Bird on #2 and #9. Steve Taft points out that the championship sets give you Bird and Magic cards for far less than their base-set cards.
#11 Title Fight?: Michael Cooper and Danny Ainge squaring up, the set's one scuffle card.