Dream Team by Jack McCallum Read Free Book Online

predictably, lost back at Boston Garden in Game 7, 117–114.
    So what Isiah should’ve said when asked lo those many years ago whether Bird was overrated was what Patrick Ewing said to the boys back home:
Rodman was wrong. This motherfucker right here is the truth
.

CHAPTER 6

THE MAGIC MAN

With a Junior Skyhook, He Claims His Place on Top
    Just a few weeks after Isiah made the ill-advised pass that came to (partly) define his career, Magic Johnson, Isiah’s best buddy (so they both told us), also stood with the ball at Boston Garden, the game in his hands, as it had been in Isiah’s. The stakes were higher for Magic than they had been for Isiah because this was the Finals. Johnson’s Lakers trailed the Celtics 106–105 with about ten seconds left, and this was Game 4. A Boston win tied up the series.
    The Lakers called time-out and the ball came in to Magic, which was no surprise. He caught it near the left baseline about twenty feet from the basket as long-armed Kevin McHale jumped out to guard him. Magic stutter-dribbled, then continued into the lane as Bird and Robert Parish converged on him. Magic would frequently dish off at this point, but from my perspective along the baseline, he seemed to be shooting all the way. About eight feet from the basket Magic softly released the shot that was later proclaimed to be, by ajubilant Johnson, “the junior, junior skyhook,” playing off the name given to the hook shot that was the specialty of teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It went in, giving the Lakers a victory and a 3–1 series lead, which proved to be crucial when they won the title in L.A. in Game 6.
    It was at that moment—one year after the Celtics and Bird owned the league, and three years after McHale had referred to Magic as “Tragic Johnson” for his poor play in the 1984 Finals—that Magic stood on the top rung of NBA players. Picture Bird and Magic on side-by-side elevators somewhere around midseason. They stopped for a while on the same floor while others below them, including youngsters such as Michael Jordan, could only gaze at them up there on high, saviors of the league, guardians of all that is holy in hoops—skill, unselfishness, imperviousness to pressure. Then Bird slowly, ever so slowly, started on his way down, grimacing with back pain, and Magic ascended. Here’s how good Johnson was in the 1986–87 season, which earned him the first of his three MVP awards: he increased his scoring by an average of 5 points per game while still controlling the offense with his passing.
    The reversal of fortunes was sudden but not altogether unexpected. If you listened to Bird closely at the end of the Celtics’ 1986 championship run, he was already looking into a hazy future. He knew his back was getting worse, and he also worried about the health of Bill Walton, whose sixth-man play had energized the team. And how many games did Walton, plagued by an ankle injury, play in 1986–87? Better to measure it in minutes: 112.
    If Magic was ever the optimist, Bird was ever the realist.
    The popular belief is that Magic was a ton of laughs and the Lakers Showtime caravan was the linchpin of the joie de vivre that took place in the NBA during the 1980s. That was not the case. Abdul-Jabbar brought new meaning to the word
dour
; I approached his locker in the Forum the same way I would’ve approached an open viper pit. James Worthy kept his own counsel. Byron Scottalways seemed a little nervous, as if he were on permanent audition, subject to rebuke from coach Pat Riley’s hook or Abdul-Jabbar’s scowl. A. C. Green was not a stirring conversationalist once you got past the subject of his virginity, on which I never lasted long. (Gordon Edes of the
Los Angeles Times
memorably quipped that Green’s idea of a one-liner was John 3:16.) Pat Riley was (is) a smart man whose company I enjoyed, but somewhere along the line he was overtaken by paranoia and is the person most responsible for instituting closed practices