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April 15 - April 25, 2022
Though he was reluctant to admit it, his motivation in buying the Lakers was the assumption that it would help in his efforts to bring an NHL franchise to California. “That was the only reason he acquired the Lakers,” said Alan Rothenberg, formerly an attorney with the Lakers. “Jack Kent Cooke was a hockey guy.”
Chick Hearn, the longtime Lakers announcer, liked telling the story of how he suggested that the new building—dubbed simply the Forum—be called the Fabulous Forum. Cooke was so pleased, he told Hearn, “There will be a little something extra in your paycheck this week.” Indeed, there was—a wallet-size photograph of Jack Kent Cooke. “He was,” said Rod Hundley, the former Lakers player and broadcaster, “the number one asshole that ever lived.”
“Fine,” said Chick Hearn, the announcer, who also worked as an assistant general manager with the team.
“Earvin had a goodness in his heart that you didn’t see too often,” said George Fox, the Everett High varsity basketball coach. “He accepted people for who they were, without looking at color or class. He was special—it was very obvious.”
“That he likes to get to know people. He’s a fun person to talk to. . . . He’s an outgoing person. He loves to sit down and talk, talk, talk.”
Both schools pined for Johnson, especially following his showing at an AAU tournament in Florida. Johnson led the upstart team from Michigan into the finals against a club from Washington, DC. The twelve boys from the nation’s capital were clear favorites—among their ranks were forward Larry Spriggs, a future NBA player, as well as soon-to-be college standouts like Kenny Matthews, Earnest Graham, and Jo Jo Hunter. On the night before the big game, Spriggs and Co. knocked on the door of Johnson’s hotel room. “You’re the guy they call Magic, huh?” Spriggs said. “Well, you’ll be seeing the DC
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Observing the madness, George Andrews, Johnson’s attorney, turned to general manager Bill Sharman, grinned and said, “We want to renegotiate.”
McKinney stopped practice and told Johnson that a pass was useless if the recipient couldn’t see it coming. Johnson nodded, said he understood, agreed—“Then practice began,” said Wilkes, “and the first pass he threw me was this wicked no-looker between defenders that nailed me in the head again. I got the point. ‘You be ready for my passes, or else you won’t get them.’ Jack wanted Magic to adjust to us but, truthfully, we all needed to adjust to him.”
Johnson turned and punched Boone in the neck. Boone fell to the ground. “Don’t you ever do that shit to me again!” the rookie screamed, as Boone charged toward him. McKinney ejected both men from practice, and as he walked toward the locker room, Johnson scanned the court and hollered, “I might be a rookie, but none of you guys are gonna punk me!” Boone uttered nary another word. His days with the team were numbered.
“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the greatest basketball player I ever saw,” said Dave Robisch, his backup in Los Angeles in 1977 and ’78. “I saw Oscar Robertson, I saw Jerry West, I saw lots of legends. But Kareem was on his own level.”
“Some little kid would ask for an autograph and he’d say, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Linda Rambis, who worked as the vice president and general manager of Forum tennis during the early 1980s. “But Kareem was, otherwise, an incredible professional.”
“I was with Kareem in Salt Lake City once,” said Josh Rosenfeld, the team’s longtime media relations director. “We were walking across the street to the basketball arena, and a man stops his car and jumps out. His wife is in the passenger’s seat, and they have a new baby with them. The man is thrilled, and he says, ‘Kareem, this is the greatest day of my life! I just picked up my first son from the hospital and I’m taking him home, and now I meet my all-time favorite player. Would you mind signing an autograph for my son?’ “Kareem blows the guy off. Just blows him off completely. And the guy
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hated white people. Read that sentence again.
Lewis entered the world weighing twelve pounds, ten ounces and measuring twenty-two and a half inches long—signs that America had received its latest future beanstalk.
On January 18, two adults and five children were murdered by the Black Muslims in a Washington, DC, house owned by
Two players who didn’t use were Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar. Both men viewed Haywood less as a teammate and more as a barrier between the Lakers and the NBA championship. “Boy, Kareem did not like Spencer,” Landsberger said. “There was real bad blood.”
“Here’s the amazing thing,” said Westhead. “Eight years later I’m coaching college at Loyola Marymount, and Spencer Haywood enters the gym. He was in recovery, and he came to ask for my forgiveness.” “Spencer, of course I forgive you,” Westhead had said. “Hell, it’s great to see you. Because, if it had worked, I wouldn’t be seeing you.”
As his teammates celebrated the 3-games-to-2 lead in the locker room, Abdul-Jabbar—along with Kerlan and Steve Lombardo, another team physician—walked, via crutches, down the street to the emergency room of Centinela Hospital Medical Center.
People let me tell you There’s a time in your life when you find out who you are That’s the golden time of day.
“Have no fear!” he yelped. “Motherfucking Magic Johnson is here!” He plopped down and continued crooning. “Right then I knew we were going to win,” said Cooper. “I just knew it.”
“To do whatever the team needed, whenever it needed it. He was our center that night, but really the position he played was ‘undefined.’”
“That fucked Philly up,” said Cooper. “They were looking around like something wasn’t right. And Caldwell Jones was looking at Magic like, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’”
Though but twenty years old, Johnson was exhausted. Dawkins and Jones had mauled him. He’d played all five positions, guarded multiple Sixers, fought for every rebound and loose ball within reach. “The greatest single-game effort ever,” said Westhead. “Ever.” Upon returning to the court, Johnson tapped in a missed layup, then watched with glee as Wilkes—who scored the quietest 37 points of all time—drove the lane, hit a layup, was fouled and sank the free throw.
went to camp, he took all the rookies out for dinner. As rookies, every day he fed me and Alan Hardy. Every single day, he had a woman come over and cook dinner, and he’d always call us over to his apartment.
“Magic was special. During training camp, we had to run a mile on the second day of practice. I was a second-round draft pick with a non-guaranteed contract, he was the Finals MVP—and I could not catch his ass. There was no reason he had to finish first in that run, but he needed to. That’s not just leadership, that’s greatness.”
He’s the only owner I’ve ever heard of who’d come into the locker room and ask two important questions—‘Where are you guys going tonight?’ and ‘Can I come along?’”
Buss brought Johnson to the mansion, and watched proudly as he emerged as one of the most revered eligible bachelors in Los Angeles. Early in his career, teammates nicknamed Johnson Buck, and the story has long gone that it stemmed from his playing like a “young buck”—aka with great passion. “But that’s complete bullshit,” said Ron Carter. “It’s not what people think. We called his ass Buck because during the days of slavery, the plantation owners would always use the strongest buck to impregnate all the women. And Earvin was such a whore, we called him Buck. The media never got that story
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According to Springer, the Orange County Register beat writer, Nixon owns “the greatest streak in sports history—two straight years of road trips without ever being minus the company of a woman for a night.”
“Michael,” he said, “you can go one of two ways right now. You can’t play basketball for us, but you can come to practice and work out. There’s a lot of quality basketball being played down at [adjacent-to-campus] Victory Park, which will keep you sharp. But what you need to do—more than anything—is buckle down and get your grades together. I’ll help you as much as I can, but it’s important that you do most of it yourself. This isn’t just about playing basketball. It’s shaping the foundation of who you are, of how much you want to expand yourself and become something and someone of substance.”
Johnson exited the room. He returned to his locker and considered all the NBA teams that needed his services. The Knicks would love Magic Johnson. So would the hometown Detroit Pistons. The New Jersey Nets. The Golden State Warriors. The Washington Bullets. The . . . the . . . He turned to Jordan at the adjacent locker. “I’ve got to leave,” he said. “It’s been great and all, but I’m asking Dr. Buss to trade me. . . .” Huh? “I want out,” he said. “I’m gone.”
“He was a spoiled kid back then. We’d be on the bus and he’d be telling us, ‘I’m either going to Chicago or New York. Fuck this guy!’ He and Buss were so close, there was no chance he was going anywhere. He handled it like crap. He wanted to get the coach fired—period.”
Nixon wasn’t having it. “He’s Magic,” he said. “If he says it, he gets away with it. If I say it, I get traded.” The sentiment was coldhearted and 100 percent correct. West seemed to hate Nixon when he coached him, and—as a key decision maker—he seemed to hate him equally now. “There was no advantage to me saying something,” Nixon said. “For anyone.”
“Now we know why they call him Magic. He made the boss disappear.”
Having also been drafted by the Dallas Cowboys with an eleventh-round pick, Riley flew to Texas and met with Tom Landry, the team’s coach. There was no chance he would play in the NFL, but the ego surge was electrifying. Riley came to California cocky and carefree—and eminently likable.
And yet, egos are egos, and NBA superstars rarely lack them. Abdul-Jabbar resented Johnson’s contract, Johnson’s buddy-buddy relationship with Buss, Johnson’s stardom. He wasn’t Nixon, a flamboyant man who felt robbed of the spotlight. No, Abdul-Jabbar—awkward, standoffish, emotionally stunted—didn’t quite know how to react. He wanted praise, he shunned fame. He wanted attention, he loathed attention. Why didn’t more fans approach him? Why should he have to sign autographs? He craved the love of teammates. He didn’t bother to talk with teammates. Whether one liked Abdul-Jabbar or loathed
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“Kurt was weird as shit—just batshit cuckoo,” said Frank Brickowski, a future Laker teammate.
But as Riley and Bertka watched the new starting unit, they were struck by a singularly unique skill that Rambis—and only Rambis—seemed to possess.
“Kurt became the best outlet passer and inbounder in the history of the game,” said Thibault. “Little skills often get overlooked in the NBA, because we value certain statistics. But what Kurt was able to do with the ball was astounding.”
The coach admitted it was a bad idea and scrapped the plan. In a late-season loss at Golden State, Riley called an unnecessary time-out, then lacked one when it was later needed. Afterward, when asked by reporters about the miscue, he pounded his fist into his chest. “The players get hammered when they make mistakes,” he said. “Sometimes I’m to blame for losses, too.”
“You think we’re fucking adjusting our game?” he said. “You think you figured us out? Take a look at the scoreboard, motherfucker.”
Earvin didn’t drink and Earvin didn’t smoke and Earvin didn’t touch drugs. His vice was women.”
“Are you mad at me?” Rosenfeld asked. Parish, who had yet to utter a word, smiled. “Not at all,” he said. “I’ve been telling that bitch to keep her mouth shut for ten years, and you’re the first guy to finally get her to do it.” They shook hands.
It was the classiest act many of the Pistons had ever seen.
than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This is, admittedly, harsh. It is also, admittedly, fair. His track record for mistreating people is epic, but not as intentional as one might believe. There is an Asperger’s-type quality to the longtime Laker, an inability to properly read people or situations. Such does not make Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a bad guy. It simply makes him an oft-clueless one.
