[83] Johnson and Thomas greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek before the opening tip of Game 1, which they called a display of brotherly love. [12] Many articles praised Johnson as a hero, and the then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush said, "For me, Magic is a hero, a hero for anyone who loves sports. [73] However, Abdul-Jabbar, who was now 38 years old, scored 30 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in Game 2, and his 36 points in a Game 5 win were instrumental in establishing a 3–2 lead for Los Angeles. Since his retirement, Johnson has been an advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and safe sex,[8] as well as an entrepreneur,[9] philanthropist,[10] broadcaster and motivational speaker. Ummmm, Magic, that happened twice in NBA History, it probably ain’t happening again. Johnson quickly mastered his own version of the shot, which he used to make the game-winning basket in the Game 4 victory at the Garden, 107-106. [76], Johnson again averaged a double-double in the 1985–86 NBA season, with 18.8 points, 12.6 assists, and 5.9 rebounds per game.
In this video, Johnson makes a lot of passes, but they are all either two-handed or right-handed. Johnson owns an elegant Tuscan style villa in Beverly Hills. Magic Johnson DraftExpress Profile: scouting reports, videos, stats and logs. He became the first rookie to start in an NBA All-Star Game since Elvin Hayes 11 years earlier. Magic Johnson says he likes to be free to congratulate players such as Russell Westbrook when he hit the 20–20-20 mark. At Riley's first home game, fans at the Forum booed Johnson during introductions. [107] The Dream Team dominated the competition, winning the gold medal with an 8–0 record, beating their opponents by an average of 43.8 points per game. [12] He stated that his wife Cookie and their unborn child did not have HIV, and that he would dedicate his life to "battle this deadly disease".
By the 1984 NBA Finals, Nixon was gone, Abdul-Jabbar was pushing 40 and Johnson had signed a then record 25-year, $25 million contract. [167][168], In 1990, Johnson and Earl Graves Sr. obtained a large interest in the Washington, D.C. PepsiCo bottling operation, making it the company's largest minority-owned facility in the U.S.[169] Johnson became a minority owner of the Lakers in 1994, having reportedly paid more than $10 million for part ownership. He put up impressive numbers as a freshman (17.0 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 7.4 apg), leading the Spartans to a 25-5 record and the Big Ten Conference title. [133][134] Johnson also became a co-owner of the club;[135] however, the project failed after one season and the club was forced into reconstruction. ", "Jordan to Bird: Top 10 moments in NBA All-Star history", "Larry Bird and Magic Johnson Receive NBA Lifetime Achievement Award", "Book review: When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson", "HBO Documentary Revisits Magic Johnson–Larry Bird Rivalry That Saved Basketball", NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player, 1979 NCAA Men's Basketball Consensus All-Americans, NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player Award, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook), America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't, National Basketball Association's 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul, NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magic_Johnson&oldid=978484004, African-American sports executives and administrators, All-American college men's basketball players, American chief executives of food industry companies, American sports executives and administrators, Basketball players at the 1979 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, Basketball players at the 1992 Summer Olympics, Michigan State Spartans men's basketball players, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees, National Basketball Association All-Stars, National Basketball Association broadcasters, National Basketball Association players with retired numbers, Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball, Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball), United States men's national basketball team players, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected biographies of living people, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 15 September 2020, at 05:50.
To take care of hunger in between meals, he usually snacks on nuts and fruit. Although Andre was raised by his mother, he visited Johnson each summer, and later worked for Magic Johnson Enterprises as a marketing director. Who does the Lakers hire next? There is no way this is actually happen. [8] He combined the size of a power forward, the one-on-one skills of a swingman, and the ball handling talent of a guard, making him one of the most dangerous triple-double threats of all time; his 138 triple-double games are second only to Oscar Robertson's 181.
Is Magic really that addicted to reaching out to players and tampering with them? Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Earvin "Magic" Johnson was one of them. "[100], Despite his retirement, Johnson was voted by fans as a starter for the 1992 NBA All-Star Game at Orlando Arena, although his former teammates Byron Scott and A. C. Green said that Johnson should not play,[102] and several NBA players, including Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone, argued that they would be at risk of contamination if Johnson suffered an open wound while on court. Ovitz encouraged him to start reading business magazines and to use every connection available to him. Johnson averaged 8.0 points per game during the Olympics, and his 5.5 assists per game was second on the team. ", "1993–94 Los Angeles Lakers Roster and Stats.