The Book of Basketball (99 page)

(Postscript: Magic didn’t take those barbs personally because, again, Kareem was a ninny. But you’d think Kareem would have appreciated Magic more after not playing with a single All-Star from 1976 through 1979.)

Magic 3.0.
Didn’t emerge until the Lakers got swept in the ’83 Finals, settled their alpha-dog/point-guard issue by swapping Nixon for the rights to Byron Scott (giving Magic the keys to Showtime), then got roughed up by a hungry Boston team that hijacked the ’84 Finals. It was a double whammy for Magic—not only did Bird’s team win, but Magic choked badly in crunch time of Game 2, Game 4 and Game 7. (I mean,
badly.
Like, everyone rehashed it all summer.) Magic rebounded by leading the Lakers to the ’85 title, winning the climactic Game 6 in Boston and exorcising a kajillion Laker demons. That’s when Magic 3.0 peaked as a point guard extraordinare and the King of Showtime, but someone who still needed an alpha dog (in this case, Kareem) to carry the scoring load for him.

(Postscript: It’s hard to overstate how badly Magic’s reputation suffered after the ’84 Finals, when he mistakenly dribbled out the clock at the end of regulation in Game 2, threw the ball away on another potential game-winning possession in Game 4, bricked two free throws with the score tied and 35 seconds remaining in Game 4, then made consecutive turnovers in the last 80 seconds to squander a winnable Game 7. That August,
SI
’s Alexander Wolff even wrote an essay titled “Johnson in the Clutch: Don’t Call Him Magic, Just Call Him Unreliable.”
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Even after his ludicrously good performance in the ’85 Finals, the consensus was, “Yeah, but he could never win without Kareem.”)

Magic 4.0.
Didn’t emerge until a young Rockets team trounced the ’86 Lakers and Kareem suddenly looked 200 years old. Hardened for a third time, Magic reinvented himself as a crunch-time scorer, pulling the Lakers past Boston with a Pantheonic Finals performance: A 26–8–13 with 54 percent shooting, one remarkably clutch shot (the do-or-die baby sky hook over McHale and Parish in Game 4) and just 13 turnovers. Amazing.
Incredible. He captured MVP and Finals MVP, finally grabbing the conch from Bird as the league’s alpha dog. From 1987 to 1991, Magic 4.0 tallied three MVPs and two rings, made the Finals four times, won 60-plus games per year and single-handedly kept the declining Lakers among the NBA’s elite. Off the court, he emulated Jordan’s marketing savvy and reinvented himself as a commercial pitchman and celebrity, even launching a Rat Pack of sorts with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.
⁷²
Suddenly he was the face of Hollywood, the guy who bridged every genre, a legendary performer and partier who knew everyone. You always hear the phrase “larger than life,” but in Magic’s case, he really was.
⁷³

Magic 5.0:
And just like that, he became the face of HIV: November 7, 1991. I remember feeling like a family member had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. When my college girlfriend called me at our school’s newspaper office to tell me the news, my knees actually went weak.
Magic is gonna die?
Even when he kept hanging around over the next twelve months—first the ’92 All-Star Game, then the Dream Team, then a brief comeback that fell apart—an unspoken expiration date lingered over everything. Nobody expected him to survive long. Then again, nobody understood the difference between HIV and full-blown AIDS. We needed someone famous like Magic to teach us about it. Which he did.

Magic 6.0.
My least favorite version. After riding high for fifteen years and getting the “magic” carpet pulled from under him, poor Earvin spent the next decade hanging around like Wooderson from
Dazed and Confused.
⁷⁴
And you know what? That stretch did more damage to the perception of his basketball career than anyone realizes. He wasted a curious amount of time squashing rumors about his sexuality, even releasing a 1993 autobiography colored with tales about his
(very hetero!)
escapades and shamelessly plowing through the talk show circuit as “the
(very hetero!)
stud who banged so many chicks that he ended up with HIV, which means this could happen to you as well!” (Important note: This relentless campaign inadvertently hampered the sex lives of all red-blooded American males between the ages of eighteen and forty for the next eight years. For the first four years, everyone was terrified to have unprotected sex unless they were shitfaced drunk. For the next four, the guys weren’t terrified but the girls still were, although it’s possible they were just out of shape and didn’t want us to see them naked. Then the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears era happened, women got in shape and started dressing more provocatively, we figured out that you had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting HIV from conventional sex and it became a sexual free-for-all. Of course, I was married by then. Awesome. Thanks for ruining my twenties, Magic.) Did we really need to know about his elevator trysts, threesomes and foursomes, or bizarre philosophy about cheating on longtime girlfriend Cookie?
⁷⁵
Was Magic educating America’s youth about HIV or affirming and reaffirming his heterosexuality? The lowest point: Magic appeared on Arsenio’s show right after the HIV announcement and was asked about his sexuality. Magic said that he wanted to make it clear, “I am not gay.” The crowd applauded liked this was fantastic news, and even worse, Magic reacted to their homophobia like there was nothing wrong with it. It wasn’t his best hour.

When his post-Dream Team comeback imploded because of HIV in-sensitivities, Magic bombed miserably on NBC, left television to coach the ’94 Lakers, and resigned after sixteen frustrating games because he couldn’t reach younger players. He toured with an exhibition hoops team across Europe—like a washed-up Bono wasting a winter
singing karaoke at Irish bars—before becoming a talk show staple, one of those “I was very, very,
very
available to come on” guests along the lines of Richard Lewis, Teri Garr, and Carrot Top. On the heels of Jordan’s much-ballyhooed return to the Bulls, Magic announced his intentions for another NBA comeback and volunteered his services for the ’96 Olympic team. Nobody cared. Undaunted, he returned after the ’96 All-Star Break and reinvented himself as L.A.’s new power forward for 32 games. This was fun for a week before we realized an older, bulkier Magic couldn’t possibly shed five solid years of basketball rust. Even if his opponents accepted him—an underrated milestone for the acceptance of HIV in this country, by the way—Earvin had turned into Chris Rock’s joke about how “you never want to be the guy who’s just a little too old to be in the club” (think
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
before retiring again that summer.
⁷⁶
He quickly created a syndicated late night show for himself, hoping to revive Arsenio’s successful tactic of “friendly celebrity brings on other celebrities, makes them feel comfortable, kisses butt, and everyone has fun.” The show would have worked if Magic had been remotely capable of hosting it. (Personally, I was devastated when they canceled it—to this day, it’s the only late night show to shatter the Unintentional Comedy Scale. You know how Magic always does his “There will nev-ah, ev-ah,
ev-ah
be another Larry Bird” routine? Trust me … there will nev-ah, ev-ah,
ev-ah
be another TV event like
The Magic Hour.)
⁷⁷
Even after that latest public failure, you still couldn’t watch a Lakers home game without NBC’s obligatory Magic interview. He inserted himself into every Shaq-Kobe title celebration like Don King after a big
fight. He boasted about beating HIV and claimed the virus had been wiped from his body. When the NBA launched a coed three-on-three celebrity game during 2002 All-Star Weekend, a heavier Magic unbelievably showed up as a teammate of Justin Timberlake and Lisa Leslie. As you watched him, you couldn’t help thinking, “Larry never would have lowered himself to this game.” I didn’t like anything about Magic 6.0 other than his durability.

Magic 7.0.
This version had a happier ending. At least so far. Magic stepped back from the spotlight, became a visionary businessman, made hundreds of millions and opened a chain of successful movie theaters across the West Coast. His on-air skills improved so dramatically that ABC lured him away from TNT last year. He still spends much of his spare time educating people around the world about AIDS and HIV. And the fact that he’s still alive and healthy, far exceeding everyone’s expectations, might be his greatest accomplishment of all.

From a historical sense, Magic 6.0 cluttered our minds and overshadowed his actual NBA resume. He clearly enjoyed a better playing career than Bird until the Wooderson era destroyed that relatively small gap; now we “remember” them as equals even though Magic’s prime lasted three extra years. Just know that I spent both Reagan terms rooting against Magic, calling him a choker and arguing Bird’s merits until my face was blue … and then Magic captured my eternal respect after the baby sky hook and his December buzzer-beater in the Garden that same year. It wasn’t that Magic made those shots as much as my reaction as he was taking them; my heart sank even as the ball was drifting toward the basket. Not even the biggest Celtics fan on the planet could deny it any longer. Magic Johnson was just as exceptional as Larry Bird. Beyond that, he remains the most breathtaking player who ever ran a fast break—better than Cousy, better than Nash, better than anyone—because his height, huge hands, Gretzky-like vision and sneaky-long arms allowed him to reach the rim faster than opponents anticipated. (I grew up in a sports world that had seven certainties: you weren’t stopping Kareem’s sky hook, you weren’t covering Rice with one guy, you weren’t blocking LT with one guy, you couldn’t let Gretzky hang behind the net on a power play, you weren’t sacking Marino, you weren’t getting Boggs to chase a bad
pitch and you weren’t stopping Magic on a three-on-one.) And he’s the single best leader in the history of the sport. Nobody
extracted
more from teammates, whether it was an All-Star Game, a mundane affair in December or any playoff game.

Digging a little further, only two modern players (Bird and Magic) played with enough unselfishness and intuition that those qualities permeated to everyone else. They lifted their teammates offensively much the way Russell lifted his teammates defensively, a domino effect that can’t be measured by any statistic or formula other than wins. Play with Bird or Magic long enough and you started seeing angles that you’d never ordinarily see … and that went for the fans, too. Jordan may have peaked as the greatest individual player ever, but he never brought everyone else to a different level like Bird and Magic did. If you loved basketball—if you truly
loved
it—you treasured them both and savored every season, every series, every game, every play, every moment. That’s just the way it was. They brought the game to a better place. Ultimately, it didn’t matter which one of them ranked higher on the Pyramid.

(Or so I keep telling myself.)

3. KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR

Resume: 20 years, 13 quality, 15 All-Stars … Finals MVP: ’71, ’85 … MVP: ’71, ’72, ’74, ’76, ’77, ’80 … Simmons MVP (’73) … ’70 Rookie of the Year … Top 5 (’71, ’72, ’73, ’74, ’76, ’77, ’80, ’81, ’84, ’86), Top 10 (’70, ’78, ’79, ’83, ’85) … All-Defense (1 1x, five 1st) … leader: scoring (2x), rebounds (2x), blocks (4x), FG% (1x), minutes (1x) … career: points (1st), minutes (1st), FGs (1st), 25–11, 55.9% FG (9th) … Playoffs: 24–11–3, 237 games (1st), most FGs … best player on 4 champs (’70 Bucks, ’80 Lakers, ’82 Lakers, ’85 Lakers) and 3 runner-ups … ’71, ’74, ’80 playoffs: 30–15–4 (45 G) … member of 35K-15K Club.
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Nobody in NBA history can approach the next two lines:

Kareem, 1971: 27–19–3, 61% FG, Finals MVP
Kareem, 1985: 26–9–5, 61% FG, Finals MVP

Chew on that one for a second. Kareem took home Finals MVPs
fourteen
seasons apart—once during year three of the Nixon presidency, once during year five of the Reagan presidency.
⁷⁹
Things that happened between those two trophies:
The Godfather
and
The Godfather Part II;
Watergate and Nixon’s resignation; John Belushi’s rise to stardom and subsequent overdose; the Cambodia bombings; Hulkmania and Wrestle-Mania I; the rise and fall of disco;
Battle of the Network Stars; The Deer Hunter
and
Coming Home;
John Lennon’s assassination; the Munich Massacre; eleven seasons of
M*A*S*H;
the apex and descent of John Travolta, Chevy Chase, Farrah Fawcett and Burt Reynolds; Atari and Intellivision; PacMan and Ms. PacMan; Coach’s real-life death on
Cheers;
Mark Spitz, Bruce Jenner, Nadia Comaneci, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mary Lou Retton and Carl Lewis; “Who shot J.R.?”; the Iran hostage crisis; season one of
Miami Vice;
Patty Hearst’s abduction;
Saturday Night Fever;
the creation of home computers, Apple and Microsoft; three Ali-Frazier fights; the first three
Rocky
and
Jaws
movies; the birth of rap; U2 and Madonna; the Cambodia bombings; the birth of cable TV, ESPN and MTV. By 1985, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen were the four biggest stars on the planet, the Cold War was at an all-time fervor, and Kareem was still cranking out Finals MVP trophies.

Only Jack Nicklaus can claim such extended athletic superiority, winning the Masters twenty-three years apart (1963 and 1986)—but really, what’s more impressive, peaking over fifteen years in basketball, or peaking over twenty-three years in a sport that can be played with love handles
and a potbelly? Kareem made first-team All-NBA’s fifteen seasons apart. From 1971 to 1980, he captured six MVP awards and should have won seven. For the first seven years of his career, he
averaged
a 30–16–5 with 54 percent shooting. For the first twelve years (1970–1981), he never averaged less than a 24–10. From 1970 to 1986 (an astonishing seventeen-year span), he averaged between 21.5 and 34.5 points and made between 51 percent and 60 percent of his shots. He’s one of the most durable superstars in sports history, missing just 80 of 1640 regular season games, cracking the 80-plus mark eleven times, playing 237 of a possible 238 playoff games and logging over
65,000 minutes
in all.
⁸⁰
He played for six championship teams. He reached eleven Finals and fourteen Conference Finals. His teams averaged 56 wins per season, dipped below .500 just twice and finished with a .600-plus winning percentage sixteen times. After his fortieth birthday, the ’87 Lakers called consecutive “we must score or we will lose” plays for him in the last 45 seconds of their biggest game (Game 4 at Boston): a delayed screen /alley-oop that tied it, then a post play in which he drew a foul. In a do-or-die Game 6 of the ’88 Finals, the Lakers called time with 27 seconds to play, trailing by one, and ran their biggest play of the season for their forty-one-year-old center; he drew a foul and nailed both free throws for the eventual victory.