His Magic Is No Match for This Foe

Fear struck back this week in the NBA.

Paranoia and ignorance boxed out the pursuit of knowledge, blocking a lane that led to a greater understanding of a disease so frightening to the general populace that even 7-foot giants are quaking in their hightops.

Monday, the Chicago Bulls relinquished their title of “NBA Champions” and handed it off to the true masters of the game--Self-Interest, Suspicion and Panic.

Once again, Magic Johnson proved to be too big for his sport. Before Magic, professional basketball had never seen a 6-foot-8-inch point guard who could trigger a fast break, post up a small forward, sink 25-foot set shots and shift over to center, if need be, to win a league title. At the very sight of Magic, the league scattered and Magic’s team, the Los Angeles Lakers, prospered as no team had since the Bill Russell-Red Auerbach Boston Celtics.

Before Magic, professional basketball also had never heard one of its superstars admit he had contracted HIV. This is a virus that kills, right? This is a virus that can be transmitted through an exchange of bodily fluids, right?

Thus confronted, the league responded the one way it knew how.

It scattered.

It took cover.

It put out the word--”Every man for himself.”

Finally, it rid itself of the dread menace with enough innuendo, rumor-mongering and misinformation to sink most Presidential campaigns, let alone one player’s bid to see if his altered condition would still permit high-level performance over the course of an eight-month season.

If it was not an entirely altruistic act--Magic was playing, ultimately, for himself and a guaranteed $19.6 million through 1994-95--it was nevertheless an experiment underscored by noble possibilities.

Doctors were eager to monitor the first case study of an HIV-positive athlete, in the prime of his career, attempting to compete as he had before, except for the skipping of the occasional second-game-in-two-nights.

AIDS patients were heartened and invigorated by the prospect of a family member getting on with his life and continuing his career in the most public of arenas. This was a trickle-down theory everybody could live with, and for:

“If Magic can do it, so can I.”

Magic had the chance to educate.

Magic had the chance to inspire.

Now he has tossed away that chance, most likely forever, and what the rest of the world isn’t going to know could very well hurt it, because this chance may never come this way again.

The rewriting of the NBA constitution by Karl Malone and Gerald Wilkins--”Don’t bleed on us”--will have a profound impact on the next NBA player privately diagnosed as HIV-positive. Coming out, as Magic did, translated into career suicide. Keep quiet about it, lie, hide the truth--and Karl will allow you to play.

Ignorance, in the NBA, is not only bliss, it’s worth $1.5 million annually, plus endorsements.

Thus, the lesson that has just been learned: Contract HIV at your own risk--reveal you contracted at a much greater risk.

It is interesting how, leading up to Magic’s participation in the Summer Olympics, the Australians squawked similarly about the risk of infection on the court and were summarily dismissed as out-of-touch outback yahoos who needed to broaden their range of reading material beyond the back of a Foster’s Lager can.

Interesting, too, how Malone ran with Magic in Barcelona and took his fast-break feeds and basked in the gold-medal glory, all hugs and smiles on the victory stand.

Apparently, Malone’s Olympic spirit got lost on the flight back to Salt Lake City.

In recent days, Malone has spent too much time counting scabs and abrasions and worrying about the Jazz’s next game with the Lakers. Now, Magic and his tainted blood are treading on my turf, Malone says. And, he adds, I’m not the only one with these concerns, which, sadly, is all too true, despite medical opinion that ought to have allayed them long ago.

According to scientists and physicians, the odds of Malone, or any of his NBA peers, contracting HIV from a collision with Magic are greater than a billion to one. Malone has a better chance of going down in a plane crash. And, yet, that hasn’t stopped him from getting his boarding pass stamped and racking up the frequent-flyer points.

A billion to one. And a columnist for The Sporting News writes that the 500-to-one odds of contracting HIV through heterosexual contact are so infinitesimal that Magic’s version of how he acquired the virus is to be doubted and somehow discredited. As if the how of it ought to matter.

In the fight against the plague of the late 20th century, there is no time, or room, for creeping homophobia.

This last chapter in the NBA career of Magic Johnson is so sad one doesn’t know where to begin hanging one’s head. Is Magic contagious? Is Magic gay? Is Magic greedy? Speculation about the “real reasons” behind Magic’s second retirement has already mounted and get ready for this one: He intended only to come back long enough to sign that $14.6 million extension for the 1994-95 season, guaranteed, thus setting up his family for the rest of his life, and beyond.

But saddest of all is the climate within the league that Magic leaves behind.

When he played, Magic opened eyes and hearts. Had he played with HIV, and played well, guilt- and contagion-free, he would have opened minds as well.

Now they are closed, as dead-bolted and boarded-up as ever.

Don’t think twice about it, NBAers.

Once, obviously, was more than enough.