Controversy Won’t Change Magic’s Mind

After months of hinting at it, Magic Johnson, appeared to make his plans clear:

He’s hoping to make a comeback.

Not his doctors, not Byron Scott, not Don Chaney are going to change his mind.

Johnson retired Nov. 7 after testing positive for the HIV infection but is set to play in the Feb. 9 All-Star game and this summer’s Olympics.

And if everything goes well?

“We’ll talk later,” Johnson said, laughing, before Wednesday night’s Laker-Warrior game.

“I haven’t ruled out coming back at all. I never said that.”

Johnson is currently taking the drug AZT. To date, his doctors have said they would advise him against returning on a full-time basis.

Would he disregard their advice?

“If I feel like playing (I would)--but everything is going really good, so . . .

“I’m all right to play now. If I want to come back, I can come back, but right now it’s on me. It’s not up to my doctors. They can advise me, but it’s how I feel. My doctors are not in my body. You take a doctor’s advice, then you make your decision. You still have to make a choice.”

In the last week, Johnson’s return has become controversial.

Scott, Johnson’s best friend on the Laker roster, and A.C. Green said he should retire.

“I would like him to channel his energies in other directions,” Scott said Wednesday. “Because basketball in a sense is over for him.

“It’s definitely my concern for his health. I don’t want him to play in a game and play well--which he will--and just start coming on, saying, ‘I’m going to play in this one and this one.’

“As he told me, the more he plays, it’s like taking years off his life. I want him to live to 80 or 90.

“I think he’s kind of torn because he knows he can still play in this league and still dominate.”

A doctor on the staff of the Australian Olympic basketball team said Magic represented a health hazard. But since then the doctor has apologized, and Wednesday Johnson accepted an invitation to play exhibitions in that country, probably in 1993.

Houston’s Chaney and Cleveland’s Mark Price also were concerned about health hazard if Magic plays in the All-Star game.

Said Johnson: “Everybody has an opinion, but it’s never been documented where any player has given it to a person playing basketball. . . . It’s a thing that everybody has to be educated, and I’m going to be the person. That’s my main job.

“If I don’t play in the All-Star game and I don’t play in the Olympics, then it’s going to hurt a lot of people. Mark Price and Don Chaney, they have a right to have that on their minds, and every other player I play against. But as they can see and witness, it’s hard to do that (pass the virus through basketball). The only way I can show you is to go out and play.

“I appreciate what he (Scott) is talking about, but if I retire, it’s not good for me and it’s not good for other people who have the virus or other handicaps. They have to feel they can live on. I’ve gotten so many letters from other people with handicaps who say they can go on because they can see my courage.

“So . . . Byron, A.C., Don Chaney, Mark Price, they’re not going to stop me from doing what I’m going to do.”

Notes

Don Nelson, who will coach Magic Johnson on the West team in the All-Star game, said Wednesday: “I told him (Johnson) it wasn’t going to be a cameo appearance unless that’s what he wanted,” Nelson said. “He said, ‘Just the opposite.’ . . . I think he should play. The fans want to see him. I want to see him. . . . He’s going to have a lot of bad days in his life, and I think he should have a lot of good days. I applaud him for it.” . . . Johnson thanked Warrior guard Tim Hardaway, displaced as a West starter by his selection, for taking it so well. “I just told him I appreciated it,” Johnson said. “He could have gone off and said a whole lot of things.”