Lakers’ Happy Days Are Here Again

When Magic Johnson first joined the Lakers, they were a dour lot, uncommunicative, uncooperative, joyless, not complaining exactly, but not much fun to be around. They seemed to approach their job with the attitude of a guy who came to fix a leak or run a lathe. A job. Not much more than that. A day at the drill press.

Then Magic came. He brought a wide smile, a happy attitude. He was like Dorothy arriving in the land of Oz. A kid on his first merry-go-round. Wherever he went, he seemed to be leading a parade. On and off camera, on and off the court, Magic was available. It was impossible not to like him.

He changed more than an attitude. He changed the way the Lakers played the game. He was the most unselfish superstar the team--and maybe the game--had ever seen. Magic was about winning. He didn’t care who did it or how it was done. “Showtime” would not have been possible without him.

Where a Laker locker room usually emptied as fast as a guy could shower and jump into his clothes, Magic would hang around till the last notebook was filled, the last sound byte recorded. Magic had an all-court game for everything. He was like a kid with a new balloon. The press loved him. I criticized him once, and the effort almost made me physically ill. Plus, I was wrong. Magic never complained. His cubicle was as open to me as anybody. That was Magic.

He’s coming back now, and the wisdom of it is challenged in some quarters.

Not here.

Magic is back doing what he does best--contributing. Passing a basketball. Filling the seats. Making the headlines. Finding the open man. Going to the basket if there isn’t one. Does he miss the limelight? Sure. It was never just a job to Magic. It’s what he’s about. The spotlight’s OK too. It’s what they pay you to make. Magic understood. It was OK with Magic. Everything was OK with Magic.

Magic without the basketball is like Ruth without a bat, John Wayne without a horse, Pavarotti without a song. An offense against nature.

Magic is back where he belongs, where he was destined to be, leading or following a fastbreak, flipping no-look passes, lighting up the backboards. Basketball isn’t a game, it’s a ballet. Who needs Nijinsky when you’ve got Magic? Was Nureyev ever more graceful?

Then, you reflect on the fact we could have been seeing this all these past four to five years and you want to cry. Ignorance, which is on a bigger win streak than intolerance, strikes again.

Magic belongs in the key the way Willie Mays belonged in center field, and not barnstorming around the world, not because he needed the money but because he needed the game. He can do without the spotlight, but he can’t do without a basketball. And why should he?

He’s coming to a Laker team that probably needs more than a smile. That’s not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon or James Worthy out there anymore. But it’s a pretty good basketball team trying to find a focus. It can beat anybody on a given night. It can also lose to anybody on a given night. It is a team without a solid center, and by that I don’t mean a guy in the pivot, I mean a core drive shaft. Sometimes, it resembles a car without an ignition.

Is Magic the missing ingredient? Or is it four (or even two) years too late?

Perhaps you saw the game, live or on TV, the other night. The clock turned back. We were all 15 years younger. That rookie you saw out there wearing No. 32 was as astonishingly effective as the young man who showed up all those years ago wearing the same number.

There’s an axiom in the fight game: “They never come back.” It’s supposed to be true of all athletics, if you want to know the truth.

But for one night, it was 1979 again. A guy with a smile as broad as the Atlantic and a heart as big as Texas had the ball in his hands and a song in his heart and, as the poet said it, God was in his Heaven and all was right with the world. A whole nation rejoiced.

Did he cramp the team’s style? Does Troy Aikman cramp Dallas’? Hey! Cedric Ceballos had his 33 points, 10 over his average, and was free to cruise around getting open. Nick Van Exel had his 16 and seemed everywhere at once. Eddie Jones was free to ad-lib, Elden Campbell didn’t have to worry about fouls for once.

Will it last? Well, the Lakers aren’t exactly Dream Team III. They are famous for squandering big leads. They are like a sailor on leave in the fourth quarter, squandering the savings of the first three. They’re a team with their backs to the wall with a 20-point lead. You have to believe Magic will instruct them in the right way to smuggle a big lead safely into the clubhouse.

The first time I ever saw Magic Johnson was at a lunch we had with then-owner Jack Kent Cooke, before Magic played a pro game. He was a college sophomore at Michigan State at the time, but I was struck by the friendliness, generosity, warmth and openness of the young man. It was obvious he liked people, and vice versa.

Then I saw him play a game in which he did everything but take quarters out of the ear of the man trying to guard him, and I knew where he got his nickname.

He was a whole man. Cooke asked me what I thought of him. “Well,” I told him, “if he doesn’t change, he will make history. And leave a void when he goes.”

For one of the few times in my life, I was right. He didn’t change. He hasn’t changed. And I’m glad the void has been postponed. We can all use a little Magic in our lives.