Critiquing Chick

Count Magic Johnson among Chick Hearn’s many admirers.

“Being with Chick has been an event because he has so many great one-liners, cliches, great expressions for the game and how you make the plays,” the Lakers all-star guard said. “Sometimes you shake your head and laugh and admire his wit because he’s so quick. I’ve come to respect him a lot. He not only loves the game, he loves us as players. We’re like his children in a sense.”

Hearn is a Laker employee and served as the team’s assistant general manager in the 1970s. Johnson, who said he often tapes and rewatches games in which he played, believes Hearn’s long association with the Lakers does not cloud his objectivity.

“Chick is a direct guy,” Johnson said. “He tells it like he sees it. When you don’t play well, he lets the people know in his own special way--like saying the mustard is off the hot dog or that you got faked into the popcorn machine.”

A Laker star of the past is less complimentary about Hearn.

“Chick is an extremely knowledgeble basketball man and an exciting play-by-play announcer,” Wilt Chamberlain wrote in his 1973 autobiography “Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door” (co-authored by The Times’ David Shaw).

“But he has one slight problem: He thinks Jerry West is Jesus Christ.”

Chamberlain’s ire was raised after the Lakers lost two of their first three games in the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain’s last with the team. Chamberlain had held out until the day before the start of the regular season, and was blamed for the team’s slow start, a contention with which he disagreed.

“Instead of talking about how cold Jerry was against New York and Boston, Chick was busy talking about how ‘tired’ I was,” Chamberlain wrote. “That was typical. In a game a couple of months later, Chick didn’t say a word when Jerry blew two layups, made a bad pass, threw another one away and kicked yet another out of bounds. Then, when I dorpped a pass in the same game, Chick said, ‘Wilt’s having trouble handling the ball tonight.’ ”

Rod Hundley has known Hearn since 1960, when he and Rudy LaRusso became the first two Lakers to be interviewed by Hearn on his KRCA (now KNBC) sportscast after the team moved from Minneapolis. Hundley later served as Hearn’s analyst in the 1967-68 and 1968-69 seasons.

Hundley, now the play-by-play announcer for the Utah Jazz, considers Hearn to be the league’s most respected announcer.

“More people copy Chick than anybody in the world,” Hundley said.

Hundley said the only criticism he has heard leveled against Hearn is that he doesn’t let his analyst talk enough.

“You have to understand the way Chick thinks,” Hundley said. “In the back of his mind, Chick thinks he doesn’t need an analyst. He could do the game by himself, but it’s nice to hear two voices. That’s the main reason you have an analyst, for the analyst to get across his thoughts on the game and give the play-by-play guy a little rest.

“But I think honestly Chick didn’t want anybody there. He didn’t ask for an analyst; they told him he was going to have one. He rejected the idea at first, then he settled in and realized someone was going to be there.”

After his stint with the Lakers, Hundley spent five seasons calling the Phoenix Suns games, moving to the Jazz when they were founded in 1974 in New Orleans. Hundley credits Hearn for much of his success as a broadcaster.

“The two years with Chick were the best thing to happen to me,” Hundley said. “I learned more than I could have learned anywhere--his terminology, style, delivery, speed and enthusiasm--which is the same way I do it. I give him all the credit. He’s the best, the master.”