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 Independent. He can be

reached at paul.saitowitz@latimes.com.