The 1988–89 Panini Basket NBA 89 set closed out its Jordan run with this one — sticker #285, the last of his three in the album and the most action-packed. The photo catches Jordan in the thick of a play against the Detroit Pistons, attacking the rim through a wall of blue-and-white road jerseys, a Pistons defender and a Bulls teammate framing him on either side. For a card printed in 1988, that subject carries real weight: this was the height of the Bulls–Pistons ‘Bad Boys’ era, the rivalry Jordan had to break through before Chicago’s championship run, which makes a sticker of him driving straight into the Detroit defense a fitting send-off image.

Like the rest of the set, this is the Spanish-market edition, sold as peel-and-stick ‘cromos’ from kioscos across Spain and manufactured in Italy by Edizioni Panini of Modena for Panini España (the back, dated © 1989, still points collectors to the Panini España office in Gerona to complete their album). It is one of three Jordan stickers in the set — #76 the portrait, #261 and #285 the action shots — and like its siblings it was made to be stuck down, so the great majority were destroyed in use. Add the European-only distribution that kept these off the American radar for years, and the gem-mint survivors are genuinely few: PSA has graded just 120 across all grades, with only 15 reaching PSA 10.