Those Magic moments
Paul Saitowitz
I’ve never met met Magic Johnson.
I’ve only seen him in person three times, but he was as big a part of
my childhood as anyone outside my family and friends. If you take into
account the amount of personal joy he brought me, you could say he was
both friend and family.
I was 5 years old when he won his first title with the Lakers, just
old enough to cement my earliest memories of my favorite player.
The first time I saw him in person was at the Forum during the 1987
season against the Golden State Warriors (the only Laker game I’ve ever
been to). I could barely sleep the night before. He had missed the
previous game due to the flu and came back with a triple double to lead
the Lakers to victory. I was 12. I’ll never forget the stutter step at
the top the key that paralyzed Eric “Sleepy” Floyd as Magic hit James
Worthy with a no-look pass on a cut to the hoop.
So many great memories. . . .
The “baby” hook shot in the finals against the Boston Celtics in the
Garden over Kevin McHale and Robert Parish still gives me chills. I was
sitting on the couch next to my dad still wearing my Little League
uniform -- I had a game that afternoon -- and we both jumped up and went
crazy when he hit it. The phone started ringing seconds later with all my
friends on the other end sharing their excitement.
The Converse Weapon commercial that featured several NBA stars
including Magic, Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird rapping a tune about the
sneakers. Bird’s line was “I walked away with the MVP.” You could see
Magic mouth the words over Bird’s sorry white-boy rap. He eventually won
three MVPs of his own.
All the last second shots he hit to win games. Against Boston,
Philadelphia, Phoenix, Houston . . . you name it. The entire team would
run straight off the court as soon as it went in, leaving their opponents
in a daze. My dad would always tell me “He’s done it too many times for
it to be luck.”
The NBA All-Star game he played in the year after he retired. Knocking
down three straight three’s at the end of the game to win MVP honors. No
one else could do that.
The smile. Man oh man how could anyone not be moved by that smile? My
mother -- who by the way has watched more sporting events than anyone
else by default, me and Pops monopolized the TV -- always calls me when
she sees or reads something about Magic because of that smile.
That same smile comforted all his fans when we learned he was stricken
with the HIV virus in 1991.
I clearly remember hearing the news at basketball practice during my
sophomore year of high school. Our coach let us go home and watch his
press conference. I was at my friend Eric’s house and we both couldn’t
believe what we were watching -- back then it seemed like a death
sentence. I went home that night and sobbed and wrote Magic a letter. My
mom still has a photocopied version of it somewhere.
The second time I saw him in person was at the Bren Events Center on
the campus of UC Irvine in 1993. It was a Summer League game and Magic
had announced a few hours earlier that he was going to play. All my
friends and I dropped whatever we were doing and headed for the game. He
still had it, wowing the crowd with amazing passes and draining
three-pointers in the faces of his opponents. His team happened to be
playing the Lakers’ summer team and I recall hearing then-Lakers coach
Del Harris yelling at his troops “No one say anything to Magic!” Magic
was talking trash every time he made an opponent look bad -- as you can
imagine, that was often. We were all going nuts.
Kareem Abdul, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer -- I pray Karl Malone
won’t catch him -- said playing with Magic added six years to his career.
I even loved the way he ran, those shoulders pumping up and down like
a jackhammer.
Or when he would hit one of his teammates with a pinpoint pass and
would just point his finger at them after they converted it to two
points.
I loved his goatee. I remember telling my friends I would grow one
just like his as soon as puberty would allow me to.
The third time I saw Magic was this past summer at the Pyramid on the
campus of Cal State Long Beach. Magic’s All-Stars, a group of former
players -- mostly has-been’s and never-were’s -- were playing a group of
young players hoping to get recognized by NBA coaches and scouts.
When my dad and I walked in the arena I saw a bloated out-of-shape
looking Magic missing layups as his team did pregame drills. I wanted to
cry, had my hero been reduced to this?
As soon as the game started things changed. He may have been a step
slow, but he could still pass and still shoot. Those jackhammer shoulders
still worked. He finished the game with a triple a double.
Last week it was announced that Magic’s No. 32 will be inducted into
the Basketball Hall of Fame. Well deserved for sure. However to me, No.
32 was more than just one of the best basketball players of all time. In
my heart he was, and will always be, pure Magic.
* Paul Saitowitz is a news editor with the Daily Pilot. He can be
reached at paul.saitowitz@latimes.com.
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