Magic
was a member of 5 NBA Championship teams.
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.
Six feet nine inches tall, 220 lbs. Magic
avg. 11.2 ast. per game over 906 NBA games. Steve Nash is 6' 3" and has avg.
7.3 ast. per game for his career.
I
f 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 fastbreak, pinpoint
alley-oops from halfcourt, 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.
From the 84-85 NBA season till 87-88 NBA
season, the LA Lakers avg 117.8 points per game over that 328 game span.
"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."
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 3-2, 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, seven assists and three 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.
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. In games of H-O-R-S-E during
practice, the 40-year-old center taught his protégé how to shoot a sky-hook.
Johnson quickly mastered his own version of the shot, which he used to make
the game-winning basket in the Game 4 victory at the Garden, 107-106. That win
propelled the Lakers to a second Finals' win over the Celtics in three years
Before the 1991-92 campaign Johnson stunned the world with
the announcement that he had tested positive for the HIV virus and was
retiring from the NBA. He made a triumphant appearance at the All-Star Game
that season, however, earning the game's MVP Award and leading the West to a
153-113 victory. He also began a campaign to promote AIDS awareness, an effort
for which he received the league's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award.
Was he the best player of his day? Another all-time great
thinks so.
"Magic is head-and-shoulders above everybody else," Larry
Bird once observed in the Chicago Sun-Times. "I've never seen [anybody]
as good as him."
