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Few athletes are truly unique, changing the way their sport is played with their singular skills. Earvin “Magic” Johnson was one of them. Just how great a basketball player was Johnson? So great, perhaps, that future generations of hoop fans may wish they had entered the world years earlier-just so they could have seen Magic play in person instead of watching him only on highlight reels.
He was what Bob Cousy was to the 1950s, what Oscar Robertson was to the 1960s, what Julius Erving was to the 1970s. Still, Earvin Johnson was even more than a revolutionary player who, at 6-9, was the tallest point guard in league history. His sublime talent elicited wonder and admiration from even the most casual basketball fan.
Whether it was a behind-the-back pass to a streaking James Worthy, a half-court swish at the buzzer or a smile that illuminated an arena, everyone who saw Johnson play took with them an indelible memory of what they had witnessed. From the moment he stepped onto the court, people pondered: How could a man so big do so many things with the ball and with his body? It was Magic.
Johnson accomplished virtually everything a player could dream of during his 13-year NBA career, all of which was spent with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was a member of five championship teams. He won the Most Valuable Player Award and the Finals MVP Award three times each. He was a 12-time All-Star and a nine-time member of the All-NBA First Team. He surpassed Robertson’s career assists record, a mark he later relinquished to John Stockton. He won a gold medal with the original Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
His all-around play inspired the addition of the term “triple-double” to basketball’s lexicon, although history demands that Robertson be recognized as the first man to regularly post double figures in three statistical categories in the same game. Unfortunately for the Big O, nobody had thought of the term triple-double back in the 1960s.
Johnson did all of this while maintaining a childlike enthusiasm born of a pure love of sport and competition. Beyond all the money, success and fame, Johnson was just happy to be playing basketball.
If there was one aspect of Johnson’s game that awed people the most, it was his brilliant passing skills. He dazzled fans and dumbfounded opponents with no-look passes off the fast break, pinpoint alley-oops from half court, spinning feeds, and overhand bullets under the basket through triple teams. When defenders expected him to pass, he shot. When they expected him to shoot, he passed. Said former Lakers swingman Michael Cooper: “There have been times when he has thrown passes and I wasn’t sure where he was going. Then one of our guys catches the ball and scores, and I run back up the floor convinced that he must’ve thrown it through somebody.”
Born on August 14, 1959, Earvin Johnson Jr. grew up in Lansing, Michigan, with nine brothers and sisters. His father worked in a General Motors plant; his mother was a school custodian. Young Earvin passed the time by singing on street corners with his buddies and, of course, by playing basketball. “Junior,” or “June Bug” as his neighbors called him, was on the court by 7:30 many mornings. “I practiced all day,” Johnson told USA Weekend. “I dribbled to the store with my right hand and back with my left. Then I slept with my basketball.”
Johnson was first called “Magic” when he was a star at Everett High School. He was given the nickname by a sports writer who had just seen the 15-year-old prepster notch 36 points, 16 rebounds and 16 assists. (Johnson’s mother, a devout Christian, thought the nickname was blasphemous.) As a senior, Johnson led Everett to a 27-1 record and the state title while averaging 28.8 points and 16.8 rebounds.
Johnson wanted to attend college close to home, so he enrolled at Michigan State in East Lansing. He put up impressive numbers as a freshman (17.0 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 7.4 apg), leading the Spartans to a 25-5 record and the Big Ten Conference title. As an All-America sophomore Johnson directed his team to the national title in 1979, beating Larry Bird’s Indiana State squad in perhaps the most anticipated NCAA Championship Game ever played.
Having accomplished all he wanted to on the college level, Johnson passed up his final two seasons and entered the 1979 NBA Draft. The Utah Jazz were supposed to draft in the first position, but the Jazz had conveyed their 1979 first-round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers three years earlier as compensation for the free-agent signing of Gail Goodrich. Thus the Lakers took Johnson with the first overall pick. The team had just undergone big changes: a new coach in Jack McKinney, a new owner in Dr. Jerry Buss, and seven new faces on the court. With the country’s most exciting college player in a Lakers uniform, Buss hoped the normally reserved Forum crowds would get up off their hands and onto their feet. “Showtime” was born.
Fans attending Johnson’s first game witnessed the sort of exuberance he would display throughout his entire career. After a buzzer-beating shot by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to defeat the San Diego Clippers on opening night, Johnson went berserk, distributing bone-jarring high-fives and bear hugs. At this rate, most observers thought, the kid would burn out in no time. Even Abdul-Jabbar had to tell the rookie to cool it, because there were 81 more games yet to play—and that didn’t count playoffs.
That season’s NBA Rookie of the Year Award went to Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics. But the NBA champion was Los Angeles. The Lakers rolled to the Western Division title with a 60-22 record, the league’s second best. (Paul Westhead took over as coach after McKinney was seriously hurt in a bicycle crash 14 games into the season.) In 77 games Johnson’s numbers mirrored those of his days at Michigan State (18.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 7.3 apg). He became the first rookie to start in an NBA All-Star Game since Elvin Hayes 11 years earlier.
In the 1980 NBA Finals against the Philadelphia 76ers, Johnson’s performance in the series-clinching sixth game was the stuff of legend. Abdul-Jabbar was sidelined with a badly sprained ankle sustained during his 40-point effort in Game 5. Up three games to two, the Lakers could wrap things up on the 76ers’ home court.
Enter Johnson, the 20-year-old rookie. Assuming Abdul-Jabbar’s position at center, Johnson sky-hooked and rebounded the Lakers to victory with 42 points, 15 boards, 7 assists and 3 steals. He even jumped for the opening tap. Johnson became the first rookie ever to win the Finals MVP Award. The stunning effort exemplified his uncanny ability to do whatever the Lakers needed in order to win.
In the Los Angeles Times, Westhead said of his amazing rookie: “We all thought he was a movie-star player, but we found out he wears a hard hat. It’s like finding a great orthopedic surgeon who can also operate a bulldozer.”
The next year was not nearly as kind to Johnson or to the Lakers. In the first month, 7-2 Tom Burleson of the Atlanta Hawks fell on Johnson’s left knee, forcing him to miss 45 games with torn cartilage. He came back in time for the Lakers’ best-of-3 playoff series against the Houston Rockets. Johnson had made only 2 of his 13 field-goal attempts when he tossed up an airball as time ran out in Game 3. The Lakers lost the game, 89-86, and the series.
Johnson and the Lakers rebounded in 1981-82, winning their division and defeating the 76ers in another six-game NBA Finals in which Johnson repeated as MVP. The season also had its share of ugliness. Early on, Westhead wanted to restructure the offense in a way that Johnson believed would have reduced his role. In a widely reported incident, Johnson exploded in the lockerroom after a game in Utah. “I can’t play here anymore. I want to leave. I want to be traded,” he was quoted as saying. Reporters waited for the signal that Johnson was joking. It didn’t come.
Westhead was fired the next day and replaced with assistant coach Pat Riley. At Riley’s first home game, fans at the Forum booed Johnson during introductions. In Seattle he was jeered whenever he touched the ball. He paid the price in the All-Star balloting and was not selected as a starter for the only time in his career other than his injury season. It took Johnson’s stellar playoff performance to silence the hecklers.
On the court Johnson’s play was as splendid as it was consistent. He won his second consecutive steals title that season and for the remainder of his career would never dip below averages of 17.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 10.5 assists per game.
The two years following the Westhead flap were great for Johnson individually but tough for Los Angeles. Johnson won the first two of his four league assists titles and continued to improve upon his already brilliant all-around play. In the 1982-83 NBA Finals against rival Philadelphia, however, Lakers Norm Nixon, James Worthy and Bob McAdoo were all hampered by injury. The 76ers swept the series.
By the 1984 NBA Finals, Nixon was gone, Abdul-Jabbar was pushing 40 and Johnson had signed a then record 25-year, $25 million contract. The grueling seven-game series against Boston marked a low point in Johnson’s career. His playmaking gaffes at the end of Games 2, 4 and 7 contributed to the Lakers’ defeat and led to a painful new moniker, “Tragic Johnson,” demonstrating how much Los Angeles fans depended on him to be infallible. Afterward he went into virtual seclusion.
With Johnson improving his outside shot and setting assists records, the Lakers won three NBA titles in the next four years. During the 1986-87 season, with Abdul-Jabbar sidelined briefly with an eye infection, Johnson did something most pro scouts had said he couldn’t do: score. He pumped in 38 points against Houston and then a career-high 46 points in the next game against the Sacramento Kings. His 23.9 season average was the highest of his career.
That season Johnson was named NBA Most Valuable Player. It had taken him eight years, in which time Bird had landed three MVP Awards. Johnson had wanted it badly. Before the winner was announced, Johnson told the Los Angeles Times, “Right now, he’s 3 and I’m 0. That bugs me a little.” (He would eventually tie Bird in the MVP count, claiming the award again in 1989 and 1990.)
Johnson won his third Finals MVP Award in 1987, following a six-game victory over Boston. It was also the year that Johnson took Abdul-Jabbar’s place as leader of the team.
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