Magic Must Settle for Playtime

It has been two years since the Dream Team pulled out of Barcelona.

Three more months and the “retirement” press conference that put his face on the cover of Time and Newsweek will mark its third anniversary.

“All I want to do,” Magic Johnson said Tuesday night in Irvine, “is own a team and relax.”

And about that triple-double Magic rolled out there on the Bren Center floor minutes earlier?

Forty-four points.

Fourteen rebounds.

Fourteen assists.

Oh that ?

“Aww, you know, I’m just an old guy trying to stay in shape,” Johnson said, beaming like a Cheshire cat in XXXL sweats, his head rocking to and fro.

“Maybe I just got lucky.”

And maybe Coach Magic would still have his job if he could have activated Point Guard Magic instead of bumping him upstairs alongside Jerry Buss. Can Magic still play? “That’s not the question,” said a fairly awe-struck Adam Keefe, who happened to be on the right side of the ball for the second annual Magic Johnson Classic. “The question is if he’d be MVP.”

Of the NBA.

With or without a Michael Jordan comeback.

“I’ve been hearing, just talking to the guys, that he has not missed a step,” Keefe said, still huffing and puffing after a 155-149 victory by the Magic Johnson All-Stars over the NBA Pros. “And some people think he’s even gotten better. With all this time off, he’s been working on his shot.”

Let’s see: 13-of-24 from the field, including a three-point set shot; 39 minutes played, more than any of his teammates; more than a point per minute in a game that began as a footrace and ended as a shotgun scramble from baseline to baseline.

“This is crazy, I know,” Magic said, “but I am in better shape now. I’m bigger up top, because I’ve been lifting weights. I can take a blow better and give a blow back.

“Guys out there were saying, ‘Man, look how big your arms are. Your chest.’ I tell them, ‘Hey, I been working out.’ ”

Keefe, who grew up near where the Bren Center stands, playing his high school ball at Woodbridge, had only watched Magic from afar before Tuesday’s exhibition provided a life experience. Incredibly, Keefe was out there running the floor in front of 4,920 screaming fans--about 2,920 more than usually visit the Bren for UC Irvine home games--and he was running the break alongside Magic, taking feeds from Magic and calling him by his given name by the final buzzer.

Old friends, after 155 points.

“That was a blast, playing with Earvin,” Keefe said. “I was looking forward to this game as much as any I’ve ever played. He was just like you always remember him--fabulous.

“All I had to do was run the floor and put my arms in the air. You know he’ll always get you the ball.”

For $6 a seat, Magic gave the crowd triple-double its money’s worth--and if this was the opening act for NBA-ready Orange County, what are the Clippers going to do to follow it up?

How’re you going to get them down to The Pond once they’ve seen Magic go for 44?

“It’s nice to get out there and play and still do what you can do--or do what you used to do,” Magic said. “People sometimes think, ‘Aw, he’s not in shape, he’s too old.’ I like to lay to rest in their minds that nothing’s changed.”

Banned by Karl Malone and the Raging Paranoids of the HIV-Afraid NBA, Magic gets most of his PT in exhibitions such as this, or with his globe trotting all-star team that just returned from tuning up the Puerto Rico national team before the Goodwill Games.

“And we got a 12-game schedule in Europe coming up in September,” Magic said. “And six games in Australia. We’re going to Argentina. I’m getting a lot of games in. I enjoy it.”

Now, Magic doesn’t play for the rings or championship banners to further wallpaper the inside of the Forum.

Now, he plays for the double-takes.

“I’m driving, going to the right hand, then to the left hand, then to the basket and I hear someone say, ‘Man, this guy’s retired!’ ” Magic said, laughing one more time. “I like to show the people that I haven’t lost a step. I still have all my quickness.”

Never mind Horace Grant and Danny Manning, the free agents du jour that Magic and Jerry West are considering throwing wheelbarrows of cash at.

Memo to the new minority-share owner of the Lakers: Re-sign yourself.