MJ, Magic vs LeBron

 The press has made a big deal about comments made by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson about “sleeping with the enemy”, or LeBron James’s moving to Miami to hopefully win a championship. You start to get the feeling that some members of the media can’t attack James themselves, so they use unassailable icons of the sport to do it for them. Proof of this is how only selected comments from a long interview with Jordan were used. The matter has stirred up an issue that was just beginning to mercifully die down.

What’s the beef of Jordan and Johnson? Primarily, they claim they would have never conceived of playing with each other, because they were so busy beating each other. Johnson and Larry Bird had such an emotional rivalry against each other, they couldn’t stand the thought ot losing to one another. Jordan couldn’t stand losing, period, and insisted on being the alpha dog on his teams, even when his talent had already deteriorated then he suited up for the Washington Wizards.

In the 1960’s, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain were close friends, almost always having dinner before their games against each other.

Some people (including Chamberlain) later publicly said that they believed it was a ploy by the legendary Boston Celtics center to make sure Wilt did not play his best against him. Whether or not it was true, nobody but Russell can ever really confIrm. Two decades ago, the PBA itself instituted a rule against a handful of its big men playing on the same team, but this was to ensure parity in the local pro game.

Jordan and Johnson were two of the transcendent stars of their generation (Bird being the third). During their time, the NBA was recovering from bad times when even championships were being broadcast on a delayed basis. Thanks largely to their intensity and charisma, the NBA became a marquee product, and the 1980’s saw an unprecedented boom in global interest in the game. Those three players rode the crest of the wave, culminating in championships and the unforgettable Dream Team experience in the Barcelona Olympics. Of course, no other US Olympic team made up of NBA superstars would ever compare.

Now, let’s go to the point of their not suiting up alongside their rivals. Magic himself admitted that, when he and Bird shot a Converse “Weapon” commercial together, he realized that he was wrong about Bird as a person. They actually had very similar traits, and the same values. This did not temper their rivalry on the basketball court, but actually enhanced it because they now had a respect that replaced the animosity. It tested their professionalism as players. But how many other stars of that magnitude were out there at the time? Besides, Magic and Bird’s rivalry started in college, and it became personal when they played each other in the NBA. That has rarely happened since.

Besides, when Magic entered the NBA as a heralded rookie, he was still a newcomer who couldn’t really make demands. The Los Angeles Lakers were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s team. So Magic couldn’t make demands on player acquisition. Later on, however, he did get head coach Paul Westhead fired, and had an impact on Norm Nixon and other players coming or going. The only constants were teammates Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper, and the rivalry with Bird. And winning.

The NBA is all about winning and big box office. When you look at it, how many rivalries were left after Jordan ruled the NBA? He decimated everyone and made them appear mere pretenders. Charles Barkley, Pat Ewing, David Robinson, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler (one competition Jordan was particularly vicious about), and many others were reduced to mere foils to Jordan’s leading man. The rivalry died down once the Chicago Bulls started getting past Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Piston “Bad Boys” teams of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Eventually, the stars will come together, as they did in NBA All-Star Games and the Dream Team. They did it for a higher cause, so Magic and Jordan can’t exactly say they never would have played with Bird or other opponents, because in fact, they did for a while. I’m sure that, given the opportunity to do so now, they would at least be open to the possibility, but not necessarily push forward the idea.

I remember in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, when Ginebra and Shell would repeatedly clash in the PBA Finals. You would see Bobby Jaworski really try to manhandle a young Benjie Paras. He was the enemy, the target. But when Jaworski was named coach to the Philippine team playing in the Asian Games, he would help Benjie up off the floor, because he needed him. Times change.

It also used to be unthinkable, for example, that players from De La Salle and Ateneo would play together. There was just too much bad blood through too many generations. Green Archers were based mainly in Manila, while Blue Eagles stayed in Quezon City. They didn’t hang out.

Then came the PBL, the Philippine team and the PBA. They were also being recruited from the same grade schools and high schools. They realized that someday, they might have to work together. So the unbridled hostility was tempered.

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