NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Magic, Isiah, Aguirre: Truly, Three Amigos

In 1988, Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas sealed a bond of friendship with pregame kisses on the cheek. Then they exchanged snarls and elbows in a seven-game battle for the NBA title.

This year, another set of lips joins the nationally televised kiss-fest at center court as Mark Aguirre teams with Thomas in an effort to get championship rings for the Detroit Pistons.

“If I had a very good friend out there, I’d probably shake his hand,” the Pistons’ Bill Laimbeer said. “But they’re all such good friends. Europeans do it all the time.”

Johnson, who already has a handful of rings for the Los Angeles Lakers, doesn’t begrudge Aguirre and Thomas the chance to be even closer.

“I’d love to be able to hang out after a game like they get to do, but I’m not jealous of them being together all the time,” Johnson said. “Actually, I’m happy for them.”

Aguirre, boyhood friend of Thomas in Chicago, joined the Pistons Feb. 15 in a trade for Adrian Dantley and.

Now Aguirre is getting his first chance to play in the NBA Finals after years of watching from the stands. The Pistons are 43-8 since the deal.

“The three of us thought a lot about what it would be like to be teammates, but we never thought it would happen,” Aguirre said. “It’s really excellent that Isiah and I are together.”

Johnson was criticized in 1986 for allegedly trying to orchestrate a trade in which James Worthy would go to Dallas for Aguirre. Thomas caught similar heat after the Dantley deal.

Most of that talk has subsided, but Thomas and Johnson said that their friendship presented a difficult situation in the Finals last year.

“We felt so much outside pressure, we didn’t even want to talk, to just say, ‘Hey, how you doing?”’

“Last year, we didn’t know what to do,” Johnson said. “We didn’t know whether to stay away from each other or not, so we just stayed away. We’ll know better how to go about things. I think we’ll be ourselves.”

Regardless, Johnson said, the pregame cheek kisses will continue. It’s a greeting they always use off the court.

“We’re going to keep doing that no matter what happens,” Johnson said.

“We’ll love each other after it’s all over, but for 48 minutes we’ll be total enemies,” Aguirre said of his meeting with Johnson. “We can actually get into it like cats and dogs, but once it’s over, I love the guy. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.

“But the main focus of winning has to take precedence. This is no time to be paling around.”

“It’ll be more special if we win the championship,” Thomas said. “For three friends as close as we are, for all of us to walk out of the NBA young, healthy and with a ring. I think that would be quite an accomplishment.”

Aguirre said he and Johnson met when both were playing in the NCAA Final Four in 1979, Aguirre for DePaul and Johnson for Michigan State.

“Magic told me after the games to come see him and he invited me to East Lansing for a few days,” Aguirre said. “Then when I saw Isiah again, I told him he should meet this guy.”

In the years before the Pistons started to win consistently, Thomas would “pick the brains” of the game’s superstars to learn what it took to win. He said he talked to Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as well as Johnson. “Isiah knows how to prepare himself now,” Johnson said. “You have to be mentally strong during the finals and be completely drained when it’s over.”

Johnson seemed to be only half joking when he said laughingly, “I hate it that I taught him that. I should be kicking myself.”

But Johnson agreed with Thomas, who said, “He didn’t tell me everything I need to know.”

“I knew when the Pistons started giving Boston a hard time that Detroit would make it to the finals some day, so I couldn’t give him all my secrets,” Johnson said. “I stopped talking in complete sentences.”

As for Aguirre, who until this year was the perennial leading scorer on a Dallas team that met the Lakers in the playoffs virtually every year, Johnson said, “Mark and I were in the same conference, so I always held back from telling him things.”

Johnson said he believes Aguirre is better off with the Pistons than with Dallas. “They tried to make Mark a leader in Dallas and he’s not a leader,” Johnson said. “He wants to be led. Now he’s with a leader. He can play his role and Isiah can lead him. Mark wanted to win in Dallas, but when they didn’t everything was his fault.”

Helping each other in bad times is a backbone of the three buddies’ friendship.

They were there for each other when Thomas’ father died in 1987 and when Johnson’s sister died that same year.

They were there for each other when Johnson was blamed for the Lakers’ loss to Boston in the 1984 Finals; when Thomas made a bad pass in the 1987 Eastern Conference finals against the Celtics and when Thomas made racial comments about Bird afterwards.

They were there for each other when Aguirre was criticized by his former Dallas teammates.

“Magic was fortunate to come into a Lakers tradition that was already established, and he gained a tremendous amount of knowledge from Kareem,” Thomas said. “But he went through some hard times. He was called Tragic Johnson and a choker. We both realize now that adversity is part of the process. When you’re on a pedestal, it’s easier to have stones thrown at you.”

When Aguirre first joined the Pistons, he said Thomas “would talk a lot of garbage, ride me a lot to get the most out of me. But for the most part, it’s really great to be with him so much.”