NBA FINALS : LAKERS vs. CHICAGO BULLS : A Rivalry Not to Be Kissed Off : Jordan, Johnson Are Friends Now, but It Wasn’t Always So. One Statistic Separates Them:Magic Leads in Title Rings, 5-0.

Michael and Magic, Magic and Michael.

You hear it so often, you wonder if Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson have been joined at the hip, or if NBC has turned them into a two-headed promotion for the NBA finals between the Lakers and Bulls.

Call it life in the big city. However they protest, it’s nothing either would change.

Each rushes to say he isn’t going one-on-one with the other.

Both finally admit they are competitive with each other.

Their relationship goes to the heart of competition at the superstar level. Now actually friendly, they have overcome the usual resentments of a rivalry amplified by a generation gap and mega-dollars.

Johnson was a full-fledged superstar when Michael Jordan burst onto the scene at the All-Star game at Indianapolis in 1985, when some body decided to freeze the kid out.

Johnson says he didn’t know about it.

Jordan noticed the suspected freezers--Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguirre--were close to Johnson. All three were represented by Charles Tucker, who admitted a conspiracy without identifying conspirators.

Given enough goodwill, respect and time, the rift healed. However, Jordan says he isn’t going to exchange kisses as Johnson and Thomas did in the ’88 and ’89 finals.

Johnson did get a hug in on Jordan on Michael’s TV show Friday.

Johnson now habitually says the torch he picked up from Julius Erving will go to Jordan.

“He better hurry up,” Jordan says, laughing. “If he doesn’t, we might be leaving the same time.”

INDIANAPOLIS

The problem started with money.

In 1984, Nike signed Jordan, the third player taken in the preceding draft, to a million-dollar contract, unheard of for an NBA rookie. Nike put out a personal line of shoes and leisure wear.

Noses were out of joint, all right, more so when Jordan participated in the All-Star dunk contest, clothed head to foot by Nike.

“To be frank with you,” Jordan says, “I didn’t really see him (Johnson) at Indianapolis. I met him. He had my respect. I wanted to work my way up the totem pole. I considered myself at the lowest rung. I was a rookie. I wasn’t looking to tick them off.

“I may have gotten some bad advice in terms of the way I dressed in the dunk contest. But as a young kid in that situation, you figure, ‘This is the business.’ ”

The next day in the All-Star game, Jordan could get only nine shots. Word of a plot leaked out.

Jordan still calls it “the worst hurt I’ve had since I’ve been in the NBA.”

Johnson says he found out about it later and was distressed to learn he was somehow implicated.

“I go to the All-Star game to have fun and to win,” Johnson says. “I’m playing for the West (Jordan was on the East). I’m going to freeze him out?”

But had something been going on?

“Yeah, there probably was,” Johnson says. “When you got that agent thing--’My player’s the greatest’--that’s what happens. I can’t help what agents say.”

Johnson says there were other people who felt a rivalry and wanted to keep them apart. Remember, Jordan was Nike. Johnson represented Converse, then the established leader.

Johnson says he took the first step toward reconciliation the same season.

“I had to,” Johnson says. “He was a young man and I was a veteran. I felt it was for me to step on in and let him know what was happening.”

That was not the start of a beautiful friendship.

There were several uneasy years. Jordan reportedly bristled at speculation Johnson was touting a trade of James Worthy--Michael’s ex-North Carolina teammate--to Dallas for Aguirre.

Once, however, Jordan noted publicly that Johnson didn’t invite Worthy to his charity game.

“Yeah, that kinda made me upset,” Johnson says.

Did it take time to develop a friendship?

“Oh, yeah,” Johnson says. “That’s with everybody. It took me and Larry (Bird) a long time. You’re sitting over here in the East. I’m sitting out West and it’s like, ‘Hey, I want to kill this guy.’

“You want it all for yourself. But what you come to understand is, it’s enough for everybody. Nobody can get a bigger shoe contract than Michael. It’d be crazy for me to think that.

“We don’t have to be jealous of each other because we both make a lot of money (an estimated $20 million annually for Jordan, $12 million for Johnson). We both win. We both have a lot of fun. It would be a shame if we played and we didn’t know each other or we hated each other over some trivial stuff.”

Now they play in each other’s charity games. They may do a business deal, something near and dear to the heart of two born-again capitalists.

MICHAEL

This shouldn’t be perceived as who is the better player.

Although both are quotable, neither is quite an open book. Several Chicago writers suspect a change in Jordan in recent years.

He customarily ducks out a back door after practice and is available for comment perhaps one day in five. Could this be more bad commercial advice from the local CBS affiliate, for which he does a weekly show, reportedly at $250,000 a year?

Jordan is suspected of initially resisting Phil Jackson’s distributed offense.

He is thought to prize his string of five scoring titles in a row.

If Jordan and Johnson have made the frank expression of their egos sound charming, there seems something over the line in Jordan’s oft-heard description of the Bulls as “my supporting cast.”

However, Jordan walks another path.

If Erving perfected the role of Game’s Spokesman, Johnson took it to another level and Jordan to the one after that: rock-idol status.

Jordan didn’t join a good team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center and Jerry West as general manager.

Jordan got the lowly Bulls and General Manager Jerry Krause, whom Jordan often criticized when the pace of rebuilding lagged.

“I think a lot of people want to be Michael Jordan right now, just for this day,” Michael Jordan says.

“The big problem about being Michael Jordan is the five years, six years to get here.

“Is there any envy (of Johnson)? Sure. Because he’s got something that I haven’t gotten. It isn’t an anger type of thing, but I would like to have something he’s got.

“He’s got five (championship) rings and I don’t have any. (Laughing) Hopefully, he has the count.

“One won’t hurt.”

MAGIC

Oh, yes it will.

Johnson has an incredible, heartfelt conviction that he is synonymous with victory, that he’s supposed to win all the time.

“I don’t think he’s the hungriest,” Byron Scott says, laughing. “I think he’s the greediest.”

When the Lakers lose, Johnson goes into a major league funk.

“He doesn’t want to talk,” Scott says. “He just wants to be alone. But the guy who took losing worst was Michael Cooper. He took it personally. I don’t think Earvin takes it personally.”

Johnson is universally beloved by the Los Angeles press corps. He does have ground rules. He doesn’t do interviews at home but will make an exception for Sports Illustrated or a TV network. He won’t do TV stand-ups before games or postgame shows.

On the other hand, he finds time for everyone and seems as genuine as the day he arrived.

He’s so genuine he couldn’t keep up his no-rivalry-with-Jordan pose.

“You’ve got to split the difference,” he conceded Saturday. “You’ve got to understand the difference.

“I mean, this is what you live for--to play Michael Jordan in the finals! But you can’t get caught in that hype. . . . If I get out of my game and try to outscore Michael, we’re going to lose big-time and I’m going to lose that battle.

“He kinda wants me to stay around so he can go out with me. He always says, ‘You can’t be leaving.’ I say, ‘I got to get out of here, I’ve been here too long.’

“But he wants somebody that he can compete against. I needed Larry. Larry needed me. Now there’s Michael and I.

“After a couple years, I’ll be gone and he’ll say, ‘OK, who is there that I can measure my game up against? Who is there that can get my juices going?’ Somebody’s got to bring it out of him, so he can rise to his highest level.”

Lucky Johnson. He had Bird, now he has Jordan.

“This is the fun part,” Johnson says, eyes bright.

“You only go ‘round once. You guys don’t, you’ll write forever. But we don’t get to play forever. That’s the problem. We just got that once in a lifetime and when you got it, you better grab onto it.

“I’m trying to grab onto that No. 23 jersey (Jordan’s) and hold it as tight as I can because it’s going to be gone. I’ll be gone and he’ll still be here.”

Aside from that, they’re just two guys playing a game.

MICHAEL JORDAN Age: 28 Height, weight: 6 feet 6, 195 pounds College: North Carolina How acquired: First-round draft pick in 1984 (third overall) Seasons in NBA: 7 All-Star game appearances: 6 MVP Awards: 2 (1988, 1991) 1990-91 salary: $2.95 million NBA finals appearances: 1 NBA championships: 0

MAGIC JOHNSON Age: 31 Height, weight: 6 feet 9, 220 pounds College: Michigan State How acquired: First pick of the 1979 draft Seasons in NBA: 12 All-Star game appearances: 10 MVP Awards: 3 (1987, ‘89, ‘90) 1990-91 salary: $3.1 million NBA finals appearances: 9 NBA championships: 5 Tale of the Tape Statistics are per-game averages

JORDAN JOHNSON 28 Age 31 6-6 Height 6-9 200 Weight 220 31.5 1991 Scoring 19.4 31.1 1991 Playoff Scoring 22.9 32.6 Career Scoring 19.7 6.0 1991 Rebounds 7.0 6.3 1991 Playoff Rebounds 8.1 6.3 Career Rebounds 7.3 5.5 1991 Assists 12.5 7.1 1991 Playoff Assists 12.7 5.9 Career Assists 11.4 2.7 1991 Steals 1.3 2.2 1991 Playoff Steals 1.2 2.8 Career Steals 1.9 7 Seasons 12 4 First Team All-NBA* 8 0 Playoff MVP 3 1 Defensive Player of Year 0 4 All-Defensive First Team 0

* Not including 1991 TODAY’S GAME: * TIME: 12:30 p.m. * TV: Channel 4 * ADDITIONAL COVERAGE: C3, C10, C11