Separating Magic’s Fun From Games

Magic Johnson, old buddy:

Maybe you simply stay home.

Don’t play basketball in the Olympics. Don’t go to the NBA All-Star game. Don’t even leave the house. Calm certain people’s fears. Spare them any undue anxiety. Hermetically seal yourself inside a plastic bubble. Make the world go away.

No, I’m not serious.

Not about the last part, anyway.

But frankly, Earvin--and man, it pains me to say this--maybe you shouldn’t be playing.

Play it safe. Don’t play.

If there are members of the Australian national team who don’t care to risk being in the same basketball game with you, then they can’t be the only ones who feel that way.

If the coach of the Houston Rockets doesn’t believe you should be permitted to compete against the rest of the league’s All-Stars, then he can’t be the only basketball professional who feels that way.

Better you don’t.

You have devoted most of your life to date to making everyone around you as comfortable as possible.

You never would have wanted to be anywhere you weren’t wanted--although up to now, there never was anywhere you weren’t wanted.

Don’t run the risk.

Even though these people might be way off-base, even though they might be an unjust minority, even though they might be guilty of emotional blackmail, extreme prejudice or unreasonable fear, there is a question you must ask yourself.

Is it worth it?

Is it so important to play some more competitive basketball that you do so knowing full well that some of the other competitors fear being near you?

You can’t educate everyone, one by one. You can’t assure everyone that you know more than they do, so they should trust you.

And if there is any significance attached to proving to these people that someone stricken with HIV can still live a productive, useful life, the argument is weak because you already do continue to lead such a life. Playing in these basketball games isn’t necessary; it’s recreational.

It’s something you should want, not something you should need.

Simply be certain how much you want it.

Earvin, some people don’t picture you attending an All-Star game and being introduced and waving hello and stepping onto the court and shooting a couple of jump shots and thanking everybody for inviting you to their party.

No, they see you bumping heads and opening a bloody cut that accidentally spills a couple of drops on another body lying next to you.

They don’t see you showing up in Barcelona in a Team USA uniform and clapping on the sidelines for Michael and Dominique and Patrick and maybe stripping off your warm-ups for five or 10 minutes and pumping a basketball over some Brazilian’s head.

No, they see you in the starting lineup running full speed for 25 or 30 minutes and diving for loose balls and driving to the hoop and playing the kind of all-out basketball for which Magic Johnson became internationally famed.

You can stand there all day long and tell them not to worry because the chances of something unthinkable happening, the chances of your somehow contaminating somebody, are so astonishingly remote that it is preposterous even to consider.

But you know how people are.

They scare easily.

They think if they shake hands with someone who works in a nuclear-power plant, they will end up glowing in the dark.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and the little knowledge some people have about your HIV-positive condition is enough to have them shaking in their gym shoes.

So, put them at ease.

Say you won’t play.

Sit on the bench, be part of the team, but don’t take part. Stay off the court. Keep yourself at arm’s distance.

Even if it’s a raw deal.

Even if it sometimes seems so unfair, it makes you want to cry.

Accidents do happen. Remember last season at the Forum, when Horace Grant of the Chicago Bulls inadvertently kicked you in the head? It resulted in partial amnesia.

Basketball might not be boxing, but neither is it a company picnic.

Sure, this is crazy. Sure, you’re not going to gush blood into someone’s open wound, which is probably the only remotely possible way of spreading infection, if indeed even something as unlikely as that could do so.

But are you fully prepared for that one chance in a million? For even that unbelievable coincidence that ends up being blamed on you? That ends up being passed on to anyone like you who already endures the ostracism and biases and other related horrors of fighting this relentlessly cruel disease?

Go to the games, Magic. Talk to the people. Wave to the people. Don’t give up on the people. Simply don’t play.

Man, I hated writing this.