The Odd Couple

That Jerry Buss and Magic Johnson would go out to dinner a few years ago was not unusual. They were always socializing away from basketball, flying to Las Vegas on a few hours’ notice for a boxing match, going to the desert on a whim to have lunch in a park overlooking Palm Springs, doing USC football games. Just hanging out.

But now Johnson was about to take over as Laker coach, another crossroads in their relationship, with the former superstar approaching the task with trepidation and Buss, the owner, excited by the possibility of greatness reincarnated in a suit and tie. Suddenly, the moods converged. It was if, at that moment, right there at the restaurant, it hit them.

All that time. All that success.

“Five championships, nine out of 12 years to the finals, stuff that’s unheard of in modern-day basketball,” Johnson said. “We sat there and both kind of cried, had a little tear in our eye. Because we were still together. Most owners and players, it’s just the time that you’re there and then that’s it, it’s over. Here we are are, still together.”

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Jerry Buss, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wyoming and a Ph.D in physical chemistry from USC, started in the aerospace industry. Looking for additional income that would allow him to pursue a love of teaching, he hooked up with an engineer named Frank Mariani and tried real estate.

Once Buss made a $1,000 investment in a West Los Angeles apartment, his life would never be the same. In time, he added complexes and houses and lots and passed Go and collected $200 a lot. He became a very rich man, rich enough to live at a renowned Hollywood address, Pickfair. Rich enough to buy the Lakers and Kings, the Forum and a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County.

That was in June of 1979, about two months after a 19-year-old sophomore from Michigan State rose to stardom with an NCAA championship. Earvin Johnson Jr. would soon become a Laker as the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Johnson came to Los Angeles for a short visit, maybe three or four days. He looked around the town that would be his and met a lot of the Laker people. Buss sent a car to get him for their first get-together. It was at a restaurant.

“I saw him walking in with these jeans on,” Johnson recalled. “I said, ‘This man’s got all this money?’ ”

So it began. The rookie owner and the rookie player.

“It was like two kids going to boot camp at the same time,” Buss said. “Admittedly, I was going to a different school, but we arrived at the same time on the same bus. There was that feeling, that we had a lot of confidence, that nobody knew who we were but we were going to prove it.”

Then they did, through the champagne showers. The older white man from the cowboy country of Wyoming and the young black kid from blue-collar Lansing, Mich. Employer and employee--the one who would pay and the one who would play.

Fate brought them together, and nothing could tear them apart.

“We understand that we’re for real,” Johnson said. “He saw a young man that wanted something out of life and would not settle for anything but the best, who wanted to work hard. I didn’t want him to give me anything, or for anybody else to give me anything. I don’t mind hard work. And he liked that initiative. Dr. Buss is a guy who wants to see if you have initiative.

“He saw that, and I think we came together because of that. He saw me like one of his kids. That’s why I’ve never negotiated with him. It’s funny. We never had a negotiation. He said, ‘I want to give you this.’ I said, ‘OK.’ He said, ‘I want you to coach this team.’ I said, ‘OK.’ It’s been like that. It’s no contract, you just say, ‘OK.’ That’s how we have it.

“It’s meant somebody there for me through thick and thin. The good times, bad times. Somebody who helped a young man turn into a man, a young man aspiring to be an entrepreneur get to that point. A man who shared his knowledge, a man who shared his love, his money, his home when he didn’t have to. I was like, I guess, the little colt to the mother. You’re always following mom around, right, and I was following Dr. Buss around. I think he’s proud how I’ve turned out, to see that all the things we talked about when I was 19 and 20, I have now become that.”

Proud?

Buss calls Magic his hero. Johnson calls him his surrogate father.

Buss welcomed him into his home and his family. Johnson talks to Buss about all of his major business investments, and there have been several.

Johnson, a free-agent-to-be tempted by the lure of New York or the chance to reunite with Pat Riley, could never really play for anyone besides Buss. The competitive Buss may not have lasted this long as an owner without the success of Magic’s Showtime teams.

From nothing in common to becoming everything to each other.

No, proud doesn’t begin to describe it.

“The relationship has been such that there’s never been a boring day,” Buss said. “I mean, there’s something new. It’s been exciting. Exciting and enjoyable. Those are the two words that I feel. Rewarding would be another one. He’s really fulfilled a lot of my ambitions and desires. I can’t imagine a situation any better than the one that has developed between us.”

Teammates used to accuse Johnson of kissing up to the boss--though in terms that were far more blunt--for the way he used to hang around Buss. Questions about running a business. Countless dinners. The night Magic was especially down after learning he would miss most of his second season, 45 games in all, because of torn cartilage in his left knee? He went to Pickfair, just to hang out and watch TV.

Buss told Johnson what to look for when buying a house in Michigan for his parents, talked to him about not borrowing a lot of money and then getting overextended financially, about how to invest. Buss, already preaching the ways of the financial world to his four kids about the same age as his surrogate son, taught him to think long term. Where do you want to be in the business world in 10 years?

Johnson, eager to learn, soaked it in. They must have eaten dinner together after practically every home game Johnson’s rookie season. Other times, they’d play pool. When Johnson was starting to go stir crazy after the knee injury, Buss called and said they were going to take a drive. They ended up eating lunch looking down on Palm Springs and talking for hours about basketball, life, everything. That, not the championships, may have been their most enjoyable moment together.

It got better with every year, “the mutual respect and love,” Johnson said. “A real love.” He found a father figure and a mentor. In exchange, Buss found a close friend who just happened to be the point man for his basketball powerhouse. Oh, and he became a teacher after all.

“I think we were both very lucky,” Buss said. “Earvin grew to heights that he may have come very close to without me. But I think I did contribute something to his overall persona. Clearly, on the other hand, he has taken me to heights that perhaps I would not have reached without him. His contribution to this marriage has been more than mine, but not because of effort.”

Said his daughter Jeanie, the president of the Forum: “It’s kind of like they were raised in the NBA together. They’re bonded together forever.”

Johnson’s retirement in November of 1991 after testing HIV-positive devastated Buss--away from the cameras shortly after leaving that memorable news conference in the Forum Club, he collapsed in the hallway. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was there to grab him under both arms. The two or three months that followed are still difficult for Buss to piece together when he looks back, almost as if they were blocked out.

Buss’ reaction to the pain, however, said plenty. He talked to doctors and read pamphlets, he called Johnson to brief him on what he had learned that day from some magazine article. They cried together.

“It was like he had it,” Johnson said. “He wanted me to have the best of everything. He wanted me to know everything there was about it, and he wanted to learn himself to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

You do that for a son.

Buss has always been generous with his players, but his treatment of Johnson is off the board. After Magic’s first attempted comeback in the fall of ‘92, he got a contract extension that included $14.6 million for a future season, even though both sides were aware he would probably have retired again by then on his terms. A payback for all those years he was a bargain because of salary-cap limitations.

Johnson wanted to get into ownership and Buss, a behind-the-scenes power in the league, helped there too. And it didn’t have to be with the Lakers. When Magic was part of the group that tried to land the expansion franchise in Toronto several years ago, only to lose out, and when a separate run was made at the Minnesota Timberwolves, his friend was there with advice.

That it was the Lakers in the end, though, couldn’t have been more of a natural. They had decided in the mid-80s that Johnson would play some role in management after retirement, but no one knew at the time whether he’d have the money to actually buy in. Buss only knew that he welcomed the prospects.

Johnson had already retired twice and come and gone as a coach after 16 games when he paid between $10 million and $15 million for about 5% of the Lakers in June of 1994, becoming only the second person, along with cable television executive Bill Daniels, outside the Buss family to own a piece of the team. He sold the same chunk back to his mentor to begin the current comeback, earning about $1-million profit for the 5% along with $2.5 million to play half a season, the maximum he was allowed under the complicated salary-cap provisions.

“He made sure that I was going to be successful in life,” Johnson said. “Forget owners. A lot of people don’t do that, and definitely a lot of owners won’t take time with their players. He never hesitated when I retired to give me the money that we had talked about. He never hesitated to give me ownership, which he knew was a thing I wanted probably more than anything in the world. Then when I became an owner, he said, ‘Look, everything is open to you, the books. I want you to learn everything, because if you want to own your own team one day, you’ve got to know everything.’ Who else would do that, just open up the whole thing?”

Johnson has also upheld his end of the commitment. The Lakers are a hot ticket again and a hot team, preparing to open the playoffs Thursday, and his impact has been huge.

In the meantime, they’ll deal with the drawbacks. Not as much time for dinner together.