When I started to watch basketball there were three big stars. Dr. J was in the latter stages of his career, but his posters were still everywhere. And then there were Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
I'll admit that I didn't like Larry Bird all that much growing up. He didn't smile. He was slow. He didn't dunk creatively. And his dang teams always won. My friends and I called him "Big Nose" Bird.
Magic on the other hand looked like he was having a great time on the court. He was cool, slick, and win or lose, you knew the basketball court was the number one place in his life.
They'd eventually cross paths time and time again throughout their careers and even after they stopped playing. When looking back at the history of the NBA, you'll see Johnson, Earvin and Bird, Larry side-by-side. They're like peanut butter and jelly.
I think that most of us born during that time frame will admit that the NBA is where it is today thanks in-part to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and the Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry. Though Michael Jordan came soon thereafter and transcended the sport even further, the league is not taken out of the tape delay doldrums of the early 80s without the two icons.
Ezra Edelman's HBO documentary Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals gets every feeling right. Going back to when I said that I didn't like Bird, those feelings were front and center at the start of the documentary. I was watching it with my kids and early on, and my youngest admitted to not liking Bird either without any prompting.
Edelman had the perfect story to tell. One player is affable and kind when the cameras are on. The other's hair is unkempt and he looks like a cold-blooded killer. Yet, when the camera is off, the roles change.Magic Johnson admits that when he was able to be Earvin, he was the greatest guy in the world. But once he was Magic, he was intense, competitive, and he had an affinity for too many things, including sex. Larry admitted that being an unfriendly player on the court was calculated. He wanted every edge possible. He didn't like Magic, but he liked Magic being there. Magic was someone he could compare himself to night in and night out. He would wake up in the morning to read what Magic and Lakers did in the newspaper. He could use Magic to pump himself up and push himself to go higher.
(Check out the video clip I added in which they talk about their dislike for each other: http://www.fanbase.com/video/3884.)
When I was younger, I figured the Lakers and Celtics played each other in every NBA Finals of the 1980s. It was really only three, and for whatever reason, I remember them well. I remember Magic being one of the main reasons that the Celtics won the championship in the 1984-1985 championship. He made a few crucial errors that Larry and company capitalized on and swung the series to the Celts. He had to pay for it in the off-season. It was an off-season in which he says was the first time in his life he'd ever been depressed.
The Lakers would win the next two times they battled in the Finals, and Magic would gain the respect back by hitting a baby hook as the clock ran out to win one of those games. After being "Tragic" Johnson, he was officially Magic again.
Those three finals gave me some of the best back and forth basketball I'd ever seen. Jordan would one-up them both in the 90s and become the greatest ever. But he never had a foe. He never had a Larry or Magic to stand toe-to-toe with him. He didn't have a Frazier to his Ali. Larry and Magic had that.
Even though I love the basketball scenes and reflecting on how great the league was when I was a child, I think my favorite part of the documentary is when their careers were coming to an end. Larry's back injury caused an early end to his career. Watching him suffer made my back stiff as I was watching. I knew it was bad, but still, it was painful to watch.
And who doesn't remember where they were when Magic announced that he had acquired HIV? I was in study hall with the rest of the players on the varsity and JV basketball team and the varsity head coach came in and said what happened and that it's now more important than ever to practice safe sex. I think most of us were astonished, but you had to be cool in study hall and not too long there after, people were cracking jokes.
I'd heard an interview with Edelman and he said that he shot a lot of long interviews with people close to Larry Bird because he was afraid that he wouldn't get an interview with Larry himself. And even if he did get one, he didn't think it'd be good. But for whatever reason, Bird brought it. He looked uncomfortable, but he spoke from the heart and he didn't mince words. He didn't like Magic. Didn't want to hang out with him after games even if Magic thought they'd grown closer. Even today, their relationship is built on competition and respect. They don't see each other often because they don't have to.
The most touching part of the entire documentary was when Magic announced he had acquired HIV. His own buddy Isiah Thomas questioned his sexuality which frustrated him. Larry called him to let him know he'd be there for him and that it would be ok. Magic couldn't play anymore and that hurt Magic. But it also hurt Larry because he didn't have anyone's box score to read to push him any more.
Go out of your way to see the film. These men were the best basketball players on the face of the earth in the 80s and we as fans were so lucky they were connected like they were.
After the movie was over, my youngest son told me, "I didn't like Larry Bird at the beginning, but at the end, he was a good guy."
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