Magic Johnson

[dub81]

I saw this on a discussion board and I thought it was pretty interesting.


I'm only 28 so I never really saw Magic in his Prime. Regardless of that he's still my favorite Laker. Now in the Showtime days Magic had a HOF team lead by him. Kareem, Big Game James, Byron Scott, Rambis, Thompson were all good players.

Now my question is who made who better?

Magic is still my man. But if Magic have not had a squad like would you still think he would arguably the G.O.A.T? Or would you think he would of had a similar career like Barkley? Barkley in my opinion is the greatest PF ever but he really never had a great talented team until he was at the tail end of his career.

What ya'll think?

[Pablo Escobar]

Yeah because he was a beast if he didn't have a great team that wouldn't be his fault just like when Kobe has smush and Kwame it was just what he had to work with, Magic was blessed to play with a great Laker team and Jerry Buss is the greatest owner so no it would effect his ranking

[DEEP3CL]

Yes because Magic could flat out play, that's what those myopic clowns don't understand on the GB. Put it like this, if not the Lakers he would've been with somebody shining like he did. In a lot of ways he made the game easier for his guys. They were already good but having him made their lives easy.

[H00PDREAMS]

I am little bit older than you so I was able to see a few games at the Forum when I was in grade school and junior high. Let me tell I knew then that I was seeing something special . Magic orchestrated the Lakers in those years! He made that team become an extension of his ability. He wasn't the "perfect" point guard he was the perfect team basketball player that played as a point guard. Only one that comes remotely close are Nash and Kidd. Paul isn't there yet. Someday, Lebron may eclipse Magics stats but that is certainly fan speculation now. Magic could have made any team good or even great. But with the team he was given He made them not great but some of the greatest teams ever.

[dafunky1]

If only the Bulls won that coin flip in 1979.............dammit,but Magic was a wizard with that basketball.Magic was showtime.As a Bulls fan I wished we woulda won that coin flip,but then we woulda never got MJ.

[Sedale Threatt]

Everybody needs help to win. Everybody. Magic was no different. So his team success wouldn't have been the same without such a great supporting cast. There aren't many who were more blessed than Buck in that respect.

But in terms of the pure player he was, though, he would have been the same. He played the exact same way in high school and college with an elite all-around game, highlighted by arguably the best court vision in basketball history, and incredible intangibles -- confidence, leadership, work ethic, etc.

He had almost everything you could want, save elite athleticism -- and he still had great speed and quickness, especially for his size.

[ShowtimeFan]

Name ONE Rookie Guard including Jordan that could have done the following:

Scoring a game-high 42 points and grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds—and handing out 7 assists—Magic Johnson to lead the Lakers to the 1980 NBA crown.

[hourockman]

Now my question is who made who better?

Magic is still my man. But if Magic have not had a squad like would you still think he would arguably the G.O.A.T? Or would you think he would of had a similar career like Barkley? Barkley in my opinion is the greatest PF ever but he really never had a great talented team until he was at the tail end of his career.

What ya'll think?

Barkley was a great player, but he's not in the Magic, Bird, Jordan echelon. He's somewhere below Hakeem. He was a disruptive louse for a nice chunk of his career. He didn't have what it took to lead a team to a title and he was saved by a ref call from our 8th seeded team eliminating him in 1993. If you were able to see him back then next to Magic and Bird, you wouldn't even question his ranking, trust.

To the question of who made who better. Magic made them better. They didn't instantly go from consecutive 1st round exits to the championship for nothing. As a matter of fact, Magic made guys like Tony Smith better, much less guys like Byron Scott.

Magic is not hype. Listen to everyone who is telling you this.

[Kalidogg24]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxBM3dTPc_k[/youtube]

Yup I'm posting this vid again.

GREATEST POINT GUARD OF ALL TIME FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anklebreaker702]

Magic = G.O.A.T. see avi

[Pablo Escobar]

Magic = G.O.A.T. see avi

I got Kareem as the GOAT but can't go wrong with Magic dude was a beast I think he easily could of averaged a triple double on a mediocre team

[sgold1961]

I was in high school and college in the pre-Magic and then with-Magic years. Kareem was dominant but the Kareem led Lakers were a collection of mostly good, not great, players who could get deep into the playoffs but could get limited. Give Cap his and hold everyone else down. Kind of like Jordan in the 80's. When Magic arrived he elevated the whole thing the Finals caliber because he gave them another threat AND made the good players even more dangerous with his passing. Teams could no longer just shut down Kareem because LA could hurt them in other ways.

[JustAwesome]

Not taking anything away from Magic, but I believe that Worthy would have still been a pretty good player in the league without him. Sometimes, people take away from the other guys (i.e. Scott, Worthy, and Green) in order to praise Magic. You can do both.

[Gek]

The fact that Magic could play with all those stars AND be their leader as a younger player says enough about him right there.

[dub81]

I feel what everybody is saying and I respect it. But I believe this proves that in order to be great you gotta have a great cast around you. Great GM, Great coach, and great players. If all the stars are not aligned, you gonna end up being a notch below great.

[TheProdigy24]

I saw this on a discussion board and I thought it was pretty interesting.


I'm only 28 so I never really saw Magic in his Prime. Regardless of that he's still my favorite Laker. Now in the Showtime days Magic had a HOF team lead by him. Kareem, Big Game James, Byron Scott, Rambis, Thompson were all good players.

Now my question is who made who better?

Magic is still my man. But if Magic have not had a squad like would you still think he would arguably the G.O.A.T? Or would you think he would of had a similar career like Barkley? Barkley in my opinion is the greatest PF ever but he really never had a great talented team until he was at the tail end of his career.

What ya'll think?

Barkley the greatest PF of all time? Malone and Duncan both are ranked higher than Barkley.

[hourockman]

I feel what everybody is saying and I respect it. But I believe this proves that in order to be great you gotta have a great cast around you. Great GM, Great coach, and great players. If all the stars are not aligned, you gonna end up being a notch below great.

The only conclusion is that we've gone full circle to your original admission that you weren't around during Magic's prime and that it was a waste of everyone's time to answer your question --> you just didn't like the responses.

[JustAwesome]

Barkley, Malone, and Duncan aren't that far apart from one another. They all made huge impacts. I couldn't say with 100% certainty that one is better than the others.

[Kilroy]

Magic was a special talent that would have been great no matter what... Having a great team around him helped him pile up championships but it also hurt his numbers a little... I watched just about every game he played as a Laker and can say that for all the things he gets 'marked down' for, he had a counter...

For the people who say he wasn't a good defender, I say when he needed to he could shut people down. But on D he wasn't always quick enough laterally to defend his PG position... It'd be a little like LeBron trying to guard CP3. So if left on small quick guards, it was sometimes a miss-match. He had really quick hads however and is the all time leader in steals for the Lakers as well as being second to only E-Jones in SPG. And he could defend SFs and PFs all day long and most SGs and some Cs... He's second to only Kap in Defensive win Shares too...

For the people who say he wasn't the best shooter, I say he was an incredibly efficient scorer who didn't need to be a volume scorer on his team. He could score at will when his team needed him to and from pretty much anywhere on the floor and in a bunch of different ways. He could post-up and could shoot from distance. He could take over the scoring game if needed and I saw him do it lots of times. He just had more fun in the open court distributing the ball. So that's what he focused on.

But he's the greatest because he made even the talented players on the Lakers better. Not just because he was a great passer but because he was one of the best at getting the ball to the player in their sweet spot on the floor. In fact, he may have been the best ever at feeding his team-mates when and where they needed. It was like the ball just appeared in their hands at the exact moment they needed it. Stockton was the only other player I've seen come close, but he honestly wasn't in the same league at creating an assist in the face of seemingly perfect D.
And no matter what team he was on, Magic would have found a way to do that.

[tsherkin]

The most important thing you can say to shut the mouths of people who complain about Magic's supporting cast is probably, "1991."

You may feel like ending it with a nasty word for a female dog, but it's probably best to avoid it.

Magic didn't have DPOY Cooper, he was gone. He didn't have Cap, he was gone and had been declining for years. He had Old Worthy, Byron Scott, a young Vlade and very little else worth mentioning, playing the slowest ball of his career (a marked departure from the running teams of the 80s) and they STILL made the Finals.

The only other thing is this... a player can be individually great without a supporting cast of any kind. MJ in pre-Pippen Chicago is a good example of this, as is Kareem in L.A. before Magic got drafted. You can't be a GREAT player, in terms of an all-time comparison, without also adding in achievements that necessarily rely on the contributions of teammates, however. Strength of conference/era plays a role as well, right? Some people remember that the Lakers cake-walked the Finals during their three-peat in the 2000s, forgetting that they were playing Webber and Garnett and Dirk and those boys in the WC en route to the Finals. Some people remember that the Lakers cake-walked TO the Finals in the 80s, forgetting that they then went at the teeth of the 76ers and the Celtics and the Pistons. It's all relative. In some years, Jordan's best opponent was in the semis or the ECFs, not the Finals. And it bears mention that the shifting financial rules of the league has made depth and talent a relative measure. You can't compare the depth of, say, Russell's Celtics to that of Jordan's Bulls, nor even Magic's Lakers to Jordan's Bulls, because within era, they were all dominant collections of talent and still generally following the 3-player principle.

By any definition or observation by someone who isn't a numpt, though, Magic was a force of nature on the basketball court and obviously one of the best players to lace 'em up.