An Unbiased Fan wrote:When speaking of the best peaks, I would think we would be comparing the best offensive & defensive peaks, along with the best 2-way peaks. MJ had a great offensive peak in 91', along with great defensive play. 87' Magic vs 64' Russell, how does that shake down? 64' Wilt vs 00' Shaq vs 94' Hakeem. 86' Bird vs 12' Lebron. What about 03' Duncan or 04' KG? Or great 2-way peaks like 06' Kobe & 94' DRob. I'm surprised at how few heated debates there have been.
Since obviously no one else is going to talk about some of these other people, I'll start with '87 Magic. I wasn't part of the Retro Player of the Year Project yet at that time, so it's someone different I haven't talked about here before.
New tricks
Lakers’ Magic adds scoring to act
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Don Nelson Tuesday was recalling a game four years ago between the Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers in Inglewood, Calif.
“I used Charlie Criss on Magic Johnson,” said Nelson. “And he never posted Charlie up once. They never looked to go down in there. Now, you can’t do that.”
The enormity of that mismatch is obvious. Criss, a former Bucks guard, is 5 feet 8 inches. Johnson is 6-9. But, as Nelson said, that was then and this is now. With Johnson becoming a more assertive offensive player this season, it’s doubtful that anyone could get away with that kind of mismatch.
Johnson is posting up — playing near the basket to make better use of his height advantage against smaller defenders — a lot more than he used to.
The “new” Magic Johnson will be one of the Bucks’ many concerns when they play the Lakers at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Arena. The Lakers have the best record in the National Basketball Association, 15-3.
“They post Magic more,” said Nelson. “He’s gotten much more aggressive offensively, and he’s scoring more.”
That he is. Going into the Lakers’ game Tuesday night against the Knicks in New York, Johnson ranked 17th in scoring in the NBA, averaging 20.8 points a game. Johnson had 22 points in the Lakers’ 113-87 victoty over the Knicks. Johnson had a career scoring average of 18.3 points going into this season, his eighth in the NBA.
For the first time in his career, Johnson is leading the Lakers in scoring.
It’s true that Johnson is shooting more this season. He’s averaging 14.3 shots per game compared with 12.7 last season, and 7.8 free-throw attempts compared with 6 last season. But it’s not as if he isn’t giving up the ball. Johnson leads the league in assists, averaging 11.2 a game.
“The Lakers are awesome, just awesome,” says Nelson. “But it’s not just their talent. They’re well-coached, and they got the ball in the hands of a guy . . . is there a better guy to have handling the ball than Magic Johnson?”
New Jersey Nets Coach Dave Wohl, a former Lakers assistant, said the Post Up Magic Theory was something Lakers Coach Pat Riley toyed with when Wohl was with the Lakers.
“That was something Pat always wanted to do,” said Wohl. “The problem is that Magic is so good with the ball and they have so many other weapons. It’s something you didn’t try to force.
“The main thing, I think after last year, was they were looking for more variety offensively and to exploit more things. At the end of last year, I think Pat thought they were too predictable. In the half-court, it was always going into Kareem. Or else it was the running game. It was either-or.
“This year, they’re looking for more weapons to go to occasionally.”
The Lakers do have some lethal weapons. Center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, merely the most prolific scorer in the history of the game, ranks no better than third on the team in scoring behind Johnson and forward James Worthy.
Guard Byron Scott and swingman Michael Cooper also score in double figures and both rank in the top four in three-point field-goal percentage.
Wohl said that in a Lakers victory over New Jersey earlier this season, Johnson posted up only a couple of times. But the threat was always there.
“It’s not something they’re going to go to five, six or seven times in a row,” said Wohl. “Unless the mismatch is there or unless Kareem is out and they need Magic’s scoring.
“It’s not that Magic has been reluctant to post up in the past. He’s just never been a post-up player. Even in college.
“Part of it is just getting him comfortable there. He can catch and create there just as well once he gets comfortable.
“Pat always liked him there but to change the half-court offense and to go to him time and again, everybody else would start standing around. What they’d like to do is find a nice balance.
“Magic has gotten much more aggressive offensively. He’s looking for his shot. That’s a big plus. It’s opening up more things. You have to worry about him more.
“He’s playing the best I’ve ever seen him play.”
In December of 1986, Kareem had to miss several games due to an eye problem.
Abdul-Jabbar out of action with eye woes
LOS ANGELES — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has suffered a painful cornea disorder blamed on years of eye jabs during basketball games, and will not be able to play until at least Tuesday, the Los Angeles Lakers said Saturday.
“Apparently he’s been poked in the eye so many times in his career that something like this is going to happen from time to time,” team spokesman Josh Rosenfeld said. “When his cornea dries up he’s going to have a problem.”
The 39-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s first 18-season veteran and all-time leading scorer, has his right eye taped shut and patched and will be examined by doctors again Monday, Rosenfeld said.
Abdul-Jabbar’s eye began bothering him Friday during a flight to Dallas for Saturday night’s game against the Mavericks, Rosenfeld said. “When he awoke (Saturday) morning the eye was inflamed and watering,” he said.
The 7-foot-2 center, who for years has worn goggles to prevent eye injury, was treated by a Dallas doctor and told he had recurrent corneal erosion syndrome, Rosenfeld said. Abdul-Jabbar returned to Los Angeles on Saturday and will be examined by team doctors Monday.
In addition to the Dallas game, Abdul-Jabbar also will miss tonight’s Laker game against Houston, Rosenfeld said, adding that doctors will have to determine whether he’ll be fit to play Tuesday night at Sacramento.
And so just as he did in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals, Magic took over.
Johnson levitates ‘Magic’ act to new heights
His team was without a legitimate center, so he elevated his own game a notch and raised the level of his teammates in the process. He averaged 39.3 points from the guard position, and every time his team was desperate for a basket, he somehow found a way to score.
No, not Michael Jordan. We’re talking about Earvin “Magic” Johnson. With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sitting out because of a recurring corneal erosion syndrome in his right eye, the Magical one took matters into his own hands last week and reminded us that he, not Jordan, is the best guard in the National Basketball Association.
Magic scored 34 points in a losing cause at Dallas, then came back with 38 points (along with 16 assists, 8 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 turnovers) to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to victory the next night in Houston. He capped it off Tuesday by scoring a career-high 46 points in an overtime victory in Sacramento.
He put on a week-long show that summoned up memories of Game 6 of the 1980 NBA finals in his rookie season. Who could forget that performance? With Abdul-Jabbar sidelined and watching at home, Magic started at center and scored 42 points as the Lakers won at Philadelphia to sew up the title.
Once again, he has proven he can score whenever needed. But more important, Magic has demonstrated that precious ability — Larry Bird is the only player who compares — to shape the circumstances of his team, and make certain they do not lose.
The so-called experts — I humbly confess to having been among them — thought that the Lakers were ready for a slide this season. The feeling was that Pat Riley’s team had lost a step on the league, and its thin front line would enable other teams to overwhelm them late in the big games.
Magic hasn’t allowed it to happen. Riley told him to shoulder more of the scoring load, and he has dutifully responded. He is shooting more than at any time in his eight-year career and averaging 23.4 points a game, five above his career average.
And he is still getting his 11 or 12 assists a game, pulling down rebounds and sparking the Lakers’ brilliant perimeter defense. He has them playing at an unsually high emotional level for this early in the season, and the Lakers have the NBA’s best record — 20-6.
For all these reasons, Magic Johnson is our choice for Most Valuable Player after one-third of the season. Frankly, it’s about time he won the award. Despite leading the Lakers to three NBA titles in seven years, he has never been named MVP.
Michael Jordan has been phenomenal, but it would be a mistake to presume he is more valuable than Magic. Magic isn’t the sheer, unstoppable scorer that Jordan is, but if necessity compelled him to shoot 30 times a night, he’d put up some awesome numbers of his own.
During this three-game stretch, Magic averaged 39.3 points on 51.3 percent shooting from the floor, 90.9 percent shooting from the line and 61.9 percent true shooting, 8.3 rebounds and 13.3 assists.
Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers—averaging 28.5 points, 15.8 assists and 8.0 rebounds—was named player of the week in the National Basketball Association for the period ending Sunday.
He then followed it up by putting up 30 points on 11-for-20 shooting, 15 assists and three steals Dec. 26 in a 134-111 win over Houston when Kareem returned to the lineup, and 28 points on 12-for-17 shooting, eight rebounds and nine assists Dec. 28 in a 111-85 win over Philadelphia.
Magic was named NBA Player of the Month for December, averaging 27 points on 51.7 percent shooting and 59.2 percent true shooting, 7.4 rebounds, 11.5 assists and 1.86 steals as the Lakers went 10-4 for the month.
'INVISIBILITY' ACT OVER FOR MAGIC BIGGER ROLE MAY BRING DRAW HONORS
For the record, he insists that the slights and the also-ran finishes don't really bother him anymore. He flashes the familiar smile, talks about teamwork and championships, then lectures you, in a friendly sort of way, on how nothing else really matters in this game.
Certainly, it is an admirable way of looking at things, and you find yourself beginning to buy it. You find yourself wanting to believe that this is a man above the trappings of ego, a professional who has transcended the need for the ultimate spotlight.
Then Earvin Johnson hits a slightly sour note--nothing mean-spirited, certainly, but just enough to plant a seed of doubt. And suddenly, you realize there may be more to this picture than meets the eye, that perhaps, beneath the Magic, there is a little bit of hurt and disappointment, too.
"If I put individual goals first, I'd be a very angry person," he was saying in a less guarded moment at a recent practice of the Los Angeles Lakers. "But I don't do that."
He hasn't, and that is very much to Magic Johnson's credit. Still, part of him remains a bit confused about why unselfishness so often goes unrewarded, why the experts who supposedly understand this game never look beyond the numbers to see what he has done.
So behind the smiles and easy answers, there is another side to all this success. It is a side that privately wonders what it is he has to do to win them over, what it finally will take for the man who makes the Lakers go to be fully recognized for what he can do.
It is a remarkable record, on both sides of the coin. In seven NBA seasons, he has helped Los Angeles to three world championships and five Western Conference titles. He has led the league in assists in six of those years. In his rookie season (1979-80), he was named Most Valuable Player in the playoffs after his brilliant 42-point, 15-rebound performance in relief of the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the Lakers won Game 6 and the championship in Philadelphia, and he came back to win the award again in 1982.
There are those who consider him the best player in the game today, and the debate almost always comes down to Johnson or Larry Bird. Still, the individual honors have lagged behind the achievements. No Rookie of the Year award. (Bird beat him 63-3 in the voting, although Johnson's team won the title that year.) No regular-season MVP award. No All-Star game MVP award.
Johnson has a simple answer for that.
"Scoring becomes a big part of it," he says, "and I haven't ever scored a lot of points."
There also is a less pleasant explanation.
"Sometimes, you get overlooked," he admitted. "Sometimes, you get old to them."
Perhaps. This year, however, there are some new touches to the old Magic, and not because Johnson has decided to chase the MVP award that his rival, Bird, already has won three times. Instead, it is coach Pat Riley's choice that Johnson should be a bit more selfish with the ball this season, and Johnson has obliged in dramatic fashion.
Through 33 games, he is averaging 23.4 points on 16.9 shots per game, up from career averages of 18.3 points and 12.5 shots. His field-goal percentage is down (54.2 to 50.8) but still is very respectable for a guard. Most remarkable of all, however, is his play-making: His average of 11.7 assists per game leads the league and is a full assist above his career average.
In other words, Johnson hasn't radically altered his game so much as he simply has added to it. So now, people are talking MVP. And now, Magic Johnson finds himself amused by the attention.
"They're saying I've raised my game to another level, and that's not true," he said. "I'm playing the same game. I could have been doing this seven years ago.
"But now, he (Riley) asks me to do it, and people are saying, 'Oh, he can do that, too.' It's just that no one ever asked me to do it before."
That he has been asked to do it is the ultimate compliment from the coach, a public acknowledgement that Johnson is a talent who can do whatever is needed for his team to win. Still, Johnson admits, old habits are hard to break, and it has taken him a while to learn to shoot first and ask questions later.
"It has been an adjustment," he said. "I've had to develop more of a scorer's mentality. Now, at certain points of the game, I have to be a little selfish."
So he is doing more, and people are noticing. And while the standard line on the Lakers is that everyone is doing more to take the burden off the aging but still brilliant Abdul-Jabbar, it is Johnson who is doing the most.
The scepter is passing, and the straight man is starting to get more of the good lines.
"It's a different role," says Johnson. "But I'm enjoying the responsibility of the added pressure. I play better when I have more responsibility."
From Jan. 2 to Jan. 19, Magic averaged 29.6 points on 51.4 percent shooting and 60.0 percent true shooting, 5.1 rebounds, 10.1 assists and 1.89 steals over 9 games in which the Lakers went 7-2.
Lakers' Johnson is player of the week
NEW YORK — Guard Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, who averaged 31.7 points, 10 assists and 6.3 rebounds in three Laker victories last week, was named NBA Player of the Week by the league Monday.
Johnson shot 56 percent from the field and 87 percent from the free throw line as the Lakers defeated Sacramento, Indiana and Boston.
He had 16 points and 13 assists against the Kings; 40 points, seven assists and six rebounds against the Pacers; and 39 points, 10 assists and six rebounds against the Celtics.
From Feb. 13 to Feb. 20, Magic averaged 32.8 points on 56.9 percent shooting from the floor, 88.7 percent shooting from the line and 65.4 percent true shooting, 7 rebounds and 11.8 assists as the Lakers went 4-1.
Los Angeles Lakers’ guard Magic Johnson, who averaged 26 points and 17.7 assists in three games last week, has been named NBA Player of the Week.
The Los Angeles Lakers’ Magic Johnson, who averaged 26.7 points, 16.3 assists and 9.7 rebounds and had two triple-doubles in three games last week, was named the NBA Player of the Week.
Johnson, who beat out Boston’s Larry Bird for the honor, shot .542 from the field and hit 27 of 32 free throw attempts as the Lakers extended their winning streak to 10 games, their longest of the season.
Magic was Player of the Month for March, averaging 21.7 points on 65.7 percent true shooting, 6.8 rebounds, 14.6 assists and 1.79 steals.
Lakers' Magic is player of the month
NEW YORK — Guard Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, who averaged 21.7 points and 14.6 assists in March, has been named the NBA’s Player of the Month, the league announced Wednesday. Johnson shot .589 from the field and .819 from the foul line last month as the Lakers won 13 of 14 games and clinched their sixth straight Pacific Division title. He leads the league with 12.3 assists per game and is 10th in scoring with an average of 23.9 points per game. Both Johnson and Chicago’s Michael Jordan have won the award twice this season.
From Mar. 31 to Apr. 5, Magic posted four consecutive triple doubles, averaging 28.3 points on 53.5 percent shooting from the floor and 58.2 percent true shooting, 10.3 rebounds, 11.8 assists and 1.5 steals in four Laker victories.
NEW YORK (AP) — Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, who hit double figures in points, rebounds and assists in all four of his games, was named Monday as the NBA’s Player of the Week.
For the week, Johnson averaged 28.2 points [28.25], 11.8 assists and 10.2 rebounds [10.25]. He leads the NBA in assists with 12.3 a game and is ninth in points at 24.1.
Other nominees were Larry Bird of Boston, Buck Williams of New Jersey, Karl Malone of Utah and Xavier McDaniel of Seattle.
This triple-double streak began three games into a season-high 11-game winning streak from Mar. 26 to Apr. 16, during which Magic averaged 25.1 points on 57.2 percent shooting and 63.7 percent true shooting, 8 rebounds, 12.9 assists and 2.55 steals.
The Lakers finished the season 65-17, the best record of the Showtime era and the second-best record in franchise history behind the 1971-72 Lakers, who went an NBA-record 69-13. The Lakers led the league with a 115.6 offensive rating, the highest in NBA history. Magic won the NBA Most Valuable Player award after averaging a career-high 23.9 points (10th in the league) on 52.2 percent shooting and 60.2 percent true shooting, 6.3 rebounds, 12.2 assists (1st) and 1.73 steals in 36.3 minutes per game. “
He was selected as NBA Player of the Week an unprecedented five times this year and was Player of the Month in both December and March” (
Daily News of Los Angeles, May 14, 1987).
Believe in Magic
Lakers have passed the torch to Earvin Johnson
LOS ANGELES — One second left. Score tied. Rodney McCray lofts the ball to Ralph Sampson, who turns and twists and tosses it at the basket from the foul line. The ball glances off the heel of the rim, bounces around and slices through the net like a dagger.
A magic shot, and — poof — the Lakers were dead.
The Houston Rockets moved on to play the Boston Celtics for the NBA title last season, while the Los Angeles Lakers, the defending champions, were swept into the dusty corner of oblivion.
The Rockets, with their Twin Towers of Sampson and Akeem Olajuwon, had launched their dynasty. The Lakers were history. Kareem was too old. Magic was not bold enough.
Now, a year later, where are those mighty Rockets? Where are the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers, the other “rising” powers in the West?
And where are the Lakers? The once and future kings of the NBA are in the finals for the sixth time in the last eight years. They open a seven-game series against the Boston Celtics tonight in Los Angeles.
The Lakers bounced back with the best record (65-17) in basketball this season. They believed in Magic.
Earvin (Magic) Johnson made use of his entire bag of tricks in his eighth professional season.
“You’ve never seen the real Magic Johnson,” Johnson once said.
“There’s a lot more to my game than I’ve shown, and one day I’m going to show it.”
This season was Magic’s Showtime. Magic passed as brilliantly as ever, but he shot, too, and rival defenses couldn’t figure out what to do.
The 6-foot-9 point guard produced his best season, an MVP season. Magic raised his scoring average to 23.9 points per game, six above his career norm, while he continued to lead the league in assists — the fourth straight year.
“Magic is the most intuitive person I’ve ever known about reading the environment of the team,” said Lakers coach Pat Riley. “He knew what he had to do, and the team knew it.”
“I realized that I had to change my game this season if we were to continue to be successful,” Magic said. “I knew I would have to start scoring more.
“It was a big adjustment. During my first seven years with the Lakers, my main duty was handling the ball. And scoring was an afterthought.”
Magic averaged 38 points a game at Everett High in Lansing, Mich. He knew he could score. He scored 42 against Philadelphia when the Lakers were without Kareem in the championship-clinching sixth game in 1980.
“The great scorers in this league, like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkins, have a scorer’s mentality,” Magic said. “They think they can score on anybody at any time. It took me some time to develop it again.”
The Magic touch returned in December. With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sidelined with an eye injury, Magic scored 34 against Dallas, 38 against Houston and a career-high 46 against Sacramento in one torrid stretch.
“I didn’t bend him, I didn’t push him, I didn’t over-coach him,” said Riley, who felt the Lakers needed to revise their fast-break offense to remain successful.
“He just did it. Because it had to be done. The great ones know when they have to step forward.”
“He always could have scored,” said Michael Cooper, the Lakers’ sixth man. “He could have been playing this way from the beginning, but he didn’t need to.”
Magic became more than a scorer. He became L.A.’s leader as well. These are his Lakers.
Kareem passed the torch, unselfishly, realizing that at 40, he could no longer dominate the offense.
“Everyone on the team accepted my new role, and that was the key,” said Magic, who has added an adaptation of Abdul-Jabbar’s sky hook to his showcase. “Kareem gave me the nod. He told me to take over, go for it.
“I never had doubts that I could do it, but there were other people to consider. Kareem, James [Worthy]. I didn’t know how they would be affected. It would have been frustrating if they hadn’t accepted my new role.
“I knew I would eventually shoot more, but I thought it would be after Jabbar was gone.”
Magic’s shot output increased 3.9 attempts a game to 16.4, while Abdul-Jabbar’s went down 4.2 attempts to 17.5 (with a scoring drop of 5.9 points to 17.5 a game).
“I had doubts, repeated doubts that this would work,” Riley confessed. “I was unfamiliar with the territory I was treading. The first week of training camp was as chaotic as anything I’d ever been through. I was comfortable with the old offense. I had the greatest post player of all time. But I knew we had to make a change.”
Magic reported to training camp in the best shape of his life, determined to inspire his teammates.
“I was worried about our future,” he said. “If I came in at the best shape of my career, it would set an example that we weren’t accepting anything, that we would come back.
Magic Johnson had to wait eight years to get his recognition.
“If Magic doesn’t get the MVP,” Riley said before the vote was announced. “It would be tantamount to Jim Bakker not being expelled from the PTL. There is no other choice.
“Magic has brought the game into a new realm of skill.”
The players agreed.
“Magic was the best player in the league this season. There was nobody even close,” said three-time MVP Larry Bird, who gave his rival and good friend a ringing endorsement all season.
“He makes everyone on the court with him better. He plays good defense, he posts up, he scores but still gets his assists. He adjusts to the game. If they’re struggling, he can take the shot. A lot of players can’t do that.”
“The true barometer for the superstars is that they make everybody else around them better,” said Seattle coach Bernie Bickerstaff.
“The one thing that I’ve said over and over again is that there are a lot of great basketball players in this league, but there are very few who know how to win.”
“Winning the MVP means a great deal,” Magic said proudly at the presentation. “I wanted to win it the right way, with the team having a great season.”
“Every great player has a special year during his career,” said West, the Lakers’ general manager. “This has been Magic’s special year.”
Magic Johnson trails Larry Bird 3-1 in MVP awards, but in the big race — NBA championships — the superstars who define each other are tied 3-3.
And championships are what matter the most.
“Winning is the most important thing. The championship is more important than this award,” Magic said. “That’s what you remember and what the fans remember. If it comes down to me having to trade this trophy in for the championship ring. Hey, it will be traded tomorrow. Diamond rings. That’s what I live for. That’s why I play. I’m all about winning.”
The Lakers are poised to win another championship, with Magic leading the way.
The Lakers defeated the Celtics in six games in the Finals, Magic unanimously winning Finals MVP honors, averaging a series-high 26.2 points on 54.1 percent shooting from the floor, 96.0 percent shooting from the line and 59.0 percent true shooting, a team-high 8.0 rebounds, and series highs of 13.0 assists and 2.33 steals with only 2.17 turnovers in 39.3 minutes per game. “ ‘This was the sweetest of them all,’ Johnson said. ‘This is the best team I ever played on. This championship means the most to me’ ” (
Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Jun. 15, 1987).
Johnson hailed as best
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — If you don’t think that Magic Johnson is the best player in, on or around the game of basketball, you haven’t been watching the same player for eight years that Larry Bird has.
“Magic,” said Bird, “is just a great basket ball player. He’s the best I’ve ever seen. Unbelievable. Other than that, I don’t know what to say.”
No problem, Larry. Johnson’s play during this, his season of seasons, said it all. Not only was he the National Basketball Association’s most valuable player, as voted by the media, and its Sporting News player of the year, as voted by the players, he was the only unanimous choice on the NBA’s all-league team. Bird wasn’t. Neither was Michael. Or Akeem Olajuwon.
Only Magic.
Much like it was the entire NBA season, regular and playoffs. Just Magic.
When it was all said and done Sunday afternoon, Johnson, as usual, had said the most and done the best. And when it came time to name an MVP for the series, won by the Los Angeles Lakers, four games to two, Johnson again was the unanimous choice.
Of course he was. He not only averaged 26.2 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds a game in the series, he made the biggest shot of the NBA season.
Officially, the Lakers beat the Boston Celtics Sunday afternoon. Unofficially, the Celtics were finished when Johnson’s sky hook with two seconds left dropped through the basket a week ago in Game 4, and Bird’s jumper from the corner at the buzzer didn’t.
“That,” Celtics Coach K.C. Jones said Sunday, “is the shot that beat us.”
“I really thought we needed to win all three games of the series at home to have a chance, and we almost did,” said Bird. “That shot he made just took it out of us. We know coming back out here it would be awful tough.”
Just as it will be tough for the rest of the NBA to beat the Lakers next season. This season’s Lakers were different from any previous Laker teams. When it came time for “Showtime,” the spotlight was on, not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as it had been for the previous decade, but Johnson.
He shot more this season, and scored more. He was given a heavier burden, and carried it all the way through the finals.
And even though he will be trying to buck history — the NBA hasn’t had a repeat champion since the ’69 Celtics — there is no reason to think Johnson cannot do it again next season.
The Lakers of 1985-86 were 62-20 during the regular season before being beaten by Houston in the conference final. The change in their philosophy, the passing of the torch from Abdul-Jabbar to Johnson, made them a 65-17 NBA championship team.
It is hard to conceive, with Johnson in his prime, and with James Worthy, Cooper and Byron Scott close to theirs, and with Mychal Thompson around for an entire season, that the Lakers won’t be back in the championship series — and favored to win it — again next year.
Lakers’ win means Magic gets his due
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — They are speaking now about Magic Johnson, once basketball’s Cheshire-grinned kid, in terms of experience and legacies and dynastic greatness. They are speaking of him in the same breath as his legendary teammate, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And they already are speaking in Los Angeles about the Lakers’ doing it all again next year — a reprise on this whole NBA championship season with the Lakers’ fast break wheeling along and Magic at the helm, scoring and dealing out one assist after another.
And who will say no?
Oh, there are Houston and Atlanta and Detroit and Dallas. Maybe Portland, if center Sam Bowie ever mends and gets back in the middle. But the Lakers’ most fabled foil, the Boston Celtics, disbanded Sunday after the Lakers’ title-clinching 106-93 victory, admitting that changes will be — and must be — in the offing. Don’t be surprised if shooting guard Danny Ainge is used as trade bait.
“We have to pick up a couple of guys,” said Celtics forward Larry Bird. “I don’t know where we stand with Kevin (McHale, who will undergo foot surgery in the next two weeks), Bill Walton (foot injury) and (injured backup forward) Scott Wedman next year.”
The Lakers, for a change, want to stick with more of the same. After they won their fourth title of the 1980s — and the fourth in Magic’s eight-year career — Abdul Jabbar, 40, immediately said he’s committed to playing one more season, maybe two. Backup center Mychal Thompson – “who did for the Lakers what Bill Walton did for us last season,” Bird said — could add a few years to Abdul-Jabbar’s career. Guard Michael Cooper talked of winning the sixth man award.
And Magic? He picked up his third championship series most valuable player award Sunday — an NBA record — to go along with his first regular-season MVP award. And afterward, principals from both teams were singing the praises of the 6-foot-9 point guard who was LA’s leading scorer (26.2 points per game), rebounder (8.0) and playmaker (9.8 assists) in the final.
“Magic is a great, great basketball player — the best I’ve ever seen,” Bird said.
“We wouldn’t be anywhere without Magic,” LA coach Pat Riley said. “I was afraid that after he won the regular-season MVP award that he might have a tendency to relax. But his whole performance this year was something that spilled over into the playoffs. I happened to be blessed with him and Kareem, two of the greatest players in the league, and they’re working on ‘legend’ titles even as they’re playing.”
Lakers general manager Jerry West took the back-patting one step higher. “I think Magic can get even better,” West said. “Experience is a wonderful teacher.”
And experience, Johnson said, taught him that this Lakers title was better than the rest.
“Every day when I lace up my shoes, I only thought about playing hard and winning a championship,” said Johnson, the former Lansing, Everrett and Michigan State star. “Of the four championships, no question, this is the greatest one because of what we did in the regular season, our record (65-17), and what we did in the playoffs.”
For the entire postseason, Magic averaged 21.8 points on 53.9 percent shooting and 60.7 percent true shooting, 7.7 rebounds, 12.2 assists (1st in the playoffs), 1.72 steals (9th) and 2.83 turnovers in 37.0 minutes per game, and led the postseason in win shares (3.7), offensive win shares (2.6), defensive win shares (1.1) and win shares per 48 minutes (.265), while finishing second in PER (26.2). Magic showed he could have been doing this earlier had the situation required it, but the situation didn’t require it. “ ‘Give a lot of credit for our success to Magic,’ Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said after Sunday’s 106-93 victory gave the Lakers their fourth title since Johnson’s arrival. ‘
He accepted his role this year as team leader and played with enough intensity to inspire the other four guys on the floor’ ” (
Kentucky New Era, Jun. 15, 1987).
