Scott Had Feared the News : Lakers: When he was told to cancel plans Thursday, he hoped it wasn’t about Johnson.

What kind of a day was Nov. 7, 1991?

The kind 11 Lakers will never forget.

“At practice (Thursday), everything was still OK,” Byron Scott said before Friday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns.

“Myself and James (Worthy) were still joking about Earvin (Johnson) not being at practice. Just little things we would do if he was there, just messing with him. Because we always had a code: If you came to practice and put on that purple and gold uniform, you better be ready to perform. We would always joke about things like that (teammates sitting out).

“Nobody really thought about it till (Coach) Mike (Dunleavy) called us in the huddle and told us, ‘Two o’clock, I want you at the Forum. No exceptions. If you have something planned to do, cancel it.’

“James had something planned. I had something. We all had something very important we thought we had to do. But that tone in his voice meant there was something wrong.

“I thought maybe this was something to do with Earvin. Driving to my house, the only thing I could think about was that this wasn’t it. I was telling myself, ‘Please, I know he hasn’t been feeling well. I hope it’s not a real serious illness or AIDS or anything like that.’

“Tell you the truth, I was hoping somebody got cut or traded. That would have been the best news of the day for me. I was driving home hoping and praying this was not what it was going to be . . .

“Earvin walked in (the Laker locker room at the Forum) like he has the nine years I’ve known him, with a smile on his face. He told us he was retiring and he had the HIV virus. He just wanted us to go on.

“The locker room was very quiet . . . 11 guys with a lot of heartache, tears flowing.

“He never shed one tear. He got to the point where I think he was about to break down with us, and he told us he had to stay strong. And we had to stay strong for him.

“The way he handled it just shows the type of person he is, but it didn’t make it any easier for the people who love him, who’ve been with him for so long. It doesn’t make it any easier for me. It doesn’t make it any easier for my wife. It doesn’t make it any easier for James, Coop (Michael Cooper), Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar). To see how he handled it shocked a lot of people--but it’s not going to make it any easier.”