1986-87 Fleer Hakeem Olajuwon #82 RC

Fleer fills a four-year hole

Topps made its last basketball set for the 1981-82 season. For the next four years no major company sold NBA cards in packs; the only licensed cards came from the Star Company, which sold team sets rather than packs. That meant the stars of the great 1984 draft, Olajuwon, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley among them, reached the NBA without a mainstream rookie card.

Fleer ended the drought with its 1986-87 set: 132 cards plus an 11-card sticker set, sold in wax packs of 12 cards and one sticker, with a stick of gum. The cards have a red, white and blue border with the Fleer logo in the top right corner, and standard statistics on the back. Eighteen rookies made the checklist, among them Jordan, Barkley, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler, Dominique Wilkins, Chris Mullin and Isiah Thomas. Ten of the 11 players in the sticker set are now in the Hall of Fame.

The set did not sell at first. One dealer recalled that boxes went wholesale for $10 to $12, single packs later sold for a quarter, and 'cases upon cases were shipped back to Fleer.' A complete set was selling for $17.95 in 1987. It took three or four years before collectors grasped what the set held.

From goalkeeper to No. 1 pick

Hakeem Olajuwon was born on January 21, 1963, in Lagos, Nigeria, to Yoruba parents. He played goalkeeper as a boy, which built the footwork, coordination and leaping that later made him one of the most agile big men the game has seen. Coach Guy Lewis of the University of Houston heard about him through a friend, and Olajuwon flew to Houston in 1980 for a workout; no one from the school was at the airport to meet him.

At Houston he joined 'Phi Slama Jama,' the above-the-rim team that also featured Clyde Drexler. He was named Most Outstanding Player of the 1983 Final Four and led the Cougars to two straight national championship games, in 1983 and 1984; they lost both, the second to Georgetown.

The Houston Rockets took him first overall in the 1984 draft, ahead of Sam Bowie, Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and Charles Barkley. Paired with Ralph Sampson as the 'Twin Towers,' he averaged 20.6 points and 11.9 rebounds as a rookie and made the All-Rookie First Team. In 1985-86 the Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals before losing the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics in six games, the championship decided on June 8, 1986.

The card's season, 1986-87, was his third: 75 games, 23.4 points, 11.4 rebounds and 3.4 blocks a game.

Akeem becomes Hakeem

Every 1986-87 Fleer card of him reads 'Akeem.' On March 9, 1991, he changed the spelling to Hakeem, saying, 'I'm not changing the spelling of my name, I'm correcting it.' Collectors still list the card under both names. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on April 2, 1993.

The best was yet to come when the card came out. In 1993-94 he became the only player to win the regular-season MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in the same season, as Houston won the 1994 title; the Rockets repeated in 1995, and he was Finals MVP again. On March 29, 1990, he recorded a quadruple-double: 18 points, 16 rebounds, 11 blocks and 10 assists. He won Olympic gold in 1996, was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History that year, retired in 2002 as the league's career leader in blocked shots with 3,830, and entered the Hall of Fame in 2008.

The PSA 10 market

The 1986-87 Fleer set is considered tough by modern standards, and the two culprits are centering and chipping. The colored borders show white cardboard at the slightest touch, which PSA's own history of the set calls the problem most responsible for knocking cards from Mint 9 down to NM-MT 8. Cards printed at the ends of the sheet are especially prone to bad centering; #82 is not among the sheet-end numbers a longtime dealer listed.

When checked in October 2026, PSA's population report showed 348 Olajuwon rookies graded Gem Mint 10, out of more than 13,000 graded in all; the largest group, 5,393, sits at NM-MT 8. PSA 9 copies have traded in the hundreds of dollars and occasionally a few thousand at auction, while the jump to a 10 multiplies the price.

The reported high for a PSA 10 is $25,000, in March 2021, at the peak of that year's card boom. By late 2025 a market review put the one-year average of PSA 10 sales at about $4,000, with eight PSA 10 sales in the preceding three months averaging $4,500. In summer 2026 one PSA 10 copy sold twice at online auction within a month: $5,600 on June 29 and $5,500 on July 27.

What to check

The card is #82 in the 132-card base set and carries the 'Akeem' spelling. Look at the borders under magnification for chips and at the left-right and top-bottom margins for centering, since those decide whether a sharp copy is a 9 or a 10.

For a graded copy, check that the PSA label reads 1986 Fleer #82 and verify the certification number on the grader's website.

The numbers

1986-87 season (card year)

75 G, 36.8 MPG, 23.4 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 2.9 APG, 1.9 SPG, 3.4 BPG, .508 FG%

1985-86 season

68 G, 23.5 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 2.0 SPG, 3.4 BPG; lost NBA Finals to Boston

1984-85 rookie season

82 G, 20.6 PPG, 11.9 RPG, 2.7 BPG, .538 FG%; All-Rookie First Team

Career (18 seasons)

1,238 G, 26,946 PTS, 13,748 REB, 3,830 BLK, 2,162 STL; 21.8 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 3.1 BPG

Honors

1994 MVP; Defensive Player of the Year 1993, 1994; Finals MVP 1994, 1995; 12 All-Star selections; Hall of Fame 2008

Timeline

1. Jan 21, 1963

   Olajuwon is born in Lagos, Nigeria.

2. 1980

   He arrives in Houston for a workout with the University of Houston.

3. 1983

   Named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

4. 1984

   The Houston Rockets draft him first overall, ahead of Michael Jordan.

5. Jun 8, 1986

   The Rockets lose the NBA Finals to the Celtics in six games.

6. 1986

   Fleer issues its 132-card 1986-87 set; card #82 is 'Akeem Olajuwon.'

7. Mar 29, 1990

   Records a quadruple-double: 18 points, 16 rebounds, 11 blocks, 10 assists.

8. Mar 9, 1991

   Changes the spelling of his first name to Hakeem.

9. Apr 2, 1993

   Becomes a U.S. citizen.

10. 1994

    Wins MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP as Houston wins the title.

11. 1995

    Second straight title and Finals MVP.

12. 2002

    Retires as the NBA's career blocks leader with 3,830.

13. 2008

    Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

14. Mar 2021

    A PSA 10 sells for a reported $25,000.

15. Jun 29, 2026

    A PSA 10 sells at online auction for $5,600; the same copy brings $5,500 on July 27.

The world in 1986

• Jan 28, 1986

  The Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart 73 seconds after launch, killing its crew of seven.

• May 25, 1986

  About 6.5 million people join Hands Across America to fight hunger and homelessness.

• Jun 19, 1986

  Len Bias dies less than 48 hours after the Celtics draft him second overall.

• Jul 5, 1986

  The refurbished Statue of Liberty reopens to the public.

• Oct 11, 1986

  Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík; the arms talks break down.

• Oct 27, 1986

  The New York Mets beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the World Series.

• Nov 3, 1986

  A Lebanese magazine reveals secret U.S. arms sales to Iran, the start of the Iran-Contra affair.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1986-87 Fleer Hakeem Olajuwon #82 RC is number 77 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (98 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Olajuwon was drafted first overall in 1984, two spots ahead of Michael Jordan, whose rookie card is in the same Fleer set.
• When he first flew to Houston in 1980, nobody from the university was at the airport to meet him.
• The card says 'Akeem'; he added the H in 1991, saying he was correcting his name, not changing it.
• He grew up playing goalkeeper in Nigeria, which developed his footwork, coordination and shot-blocking.
• He is the only player to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in the same season.
• He observed the Ramadan fast throughout his playing career.