When the Game Was Ours (31 page)

The Spurs tried to inform Thompson that he'd been traded, but San Antonio had a game that night, and he had already taken the phone off the hook and settled in for his customary pregame nap. In an era when text messages and cell phones were not yet part of everyday life, Thompson was unreachable.

When his nap was over, he got up, placed the receiver back on its cradle, and drove to the arena. As he jumped onto the table to get his ankles taped, the only two people in the locker room were his soon-to-be-ex-teammate Darnell Valentine and trainer John Anderson.

"Hey, I can't tape you, you've been traded," Anderson said.

"C'mon, no joking around today," Thompson said. "I want to do some extra shooting."

"Are you listening to me? You are no longer a Spur," Anderson persisted. "You've been traded to the Lakers."

Thompson looked at him for a moment, then at Valentine. Neither was laughing. He leaped up and hugged them both.

"I felt like I won the lottery," Thompson said.

Two days later, he was in the Lakers locker room preparing for a nationally televised afternoon game against the Celtics. As he dressed with Kareem to his left and Magic to his right, he leaned over to forward A. C. Green and cracked, "I feel like I'm with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards."

Green responded with a polite but restrained smile. Thompson noted that there was no idle chatter, no horsing around. The locker room was quiet, businesslike.

"You couldn't cut the tension with a chain saw," Thompson said.

The jovial big man, who had hammed it up with Magic many times before, was surprised to see that even Johnson was grim-faced. Thompson asked Byron Scott, "So why is everyone so serious around here?"

"Because we hate the Celtics," Scott replied.

Thompson's first taste of Boston-LA was every bit as electrifying as he had imagined. The Lakers won 106–103, and his initiation into the trench war included a stiff arm to his Adam's apple from Parish and a humiliating series of post-up acrobatics from his old friend McHale on the block. Yet Thompson acquitted himself well overall, and Johnson was optimistic they'd found a neutralizing weapon underneath.

It was one of the many new moves the Lakers made in 1986–87. Just as Bird felt cheated in '83 when his team didn't make it to the Finals, Magic was still rankled by his team's underwhelming '86 postseason performance. A month into a long summer of frustrated retrospection, Riley invited him to lunch.

"We've got to change things, Earvin," Riley said. "This has to be your team now."

Magic was mildly confused. He felt as though it had been his team for the last four or five years.

"You can't just be the guy that sets everyone else up anymore. I need you to score," Riley clarified.

"Have you talked to Kareem about this?" Magic asked.

"I talked to Kareem already," Riley answered. "He understands. Now you have to understand. When you come back, you have to have a different mindset."

Magic, who honestly believed he could put up the same numbers as Larry Bird, had spent years deferring to Abdul-Jabbar on the offensive end. Through the first seven seasons of his career, he averaged 12 shots a game. Now Riley was talking about him taking 15 to 20 a night. It would require more pick-and-rolls as well as setting Johnson up in the post so he could exploit the smaller guards.

Johnson went back to Lansing and asked his college coach, Heathcote, to walk him through the nuances of the post-up game. For hours, Heathcote fed his former Michigan State star passes on the block, monitoring his footwork on the drop step and the angle of his shoulder when he turned to take the hook.

Magic's summer league workout partners showed up expecting the usual no-look lobs above the rim, the half-court bounce passes up the middle, and the drive-and-kick feeds to the perimeter. Instead, Magic was driving and finishing. He was posting up forwards, guards, anyone he could pin down on the block. He was pulling up for jump shots on the break instead of dishing off to the trailer. When he arrived at training camp, he lingered after practice, studying Abdul-Jabbar's sweeping hook.

"What makes it work?" Magic asked. "Is it the position of the ball? The release? The footwork?"

Kareem demonstrated the proper way to turn the body, how to keep the sweeping motion far enough from the opponent so it could not be blocked. He replicated the flick of the wrist, which enabled the ball to arc properly.

Magic was genuinely concerned about how Abdul-Jabbar would handle the subtle change in the team's pecking order. He had gone to great pains throughout his career to show the proper reverence to a player he had idolized since he was a child.

Yet Kareem continued to be an enigma. While at times he could be outgoing, even playful, those moments were offset by the more frequent occasions when he was difficult, standoffish. On those days, Johnson wrestled with whether he should call out the captain for his temperamental nature. If any other player had caused that kind of friction on the team, Magic would have admonished him. But Abdul-Jabbar was different. Keeping him happy required a delicate balance of respect and distance. It was indisputable that the team was more successful when their center was engaged and focused.

As far as his teammate could figure, there were two Abdul-Jabbars: the genuine, elegant, articulate man who brought Magic to tears at his retirement ceremony with his heartfelt remarks, and the bitter, stubborn man who snubbed Riley at his Hall of Fame induction.

"Thank God Kareem was my teammate, because I used to cringe at the way he treated people," Magic said. "There was a way to say no if you didn't want to sign an autograph. You could say, 'I'm busy right now,' or, 'Sorry, not today.' But Kareem didn't do it in a very kind way. Sometimes he'd have people in tears. It's hurt him now that he's done playing."

More than a decade after both men retired, Kareem approached Magic to learn more about Johnson's business acumen. Abdul-Jabbar had struggled to find his niche since he stopped playing, and he was looking to Magic, who had made millions off the court, for advice.

"I want to be like you," the center said.

Magic shook his head.

"No, you don't," Johnson answered. "To be like me, you've got to shake hands, hug people, attend luncheons. You've got to be nice to people all the time. You've got to make small talk. You've got to be
on
."

"Well, maybe I can do it another way," Abdul-Jabbar said.

"There is no other way," Magic explained. "You have to be cordial. You can't treat your teammates without any courtesy, or humiliate reporters, or blow off fans."

Magic shared a story with Abdul-Jabbar that happened in his second season in the pros and resonated with him for a decade. The Lakers were finishing up a pregame shoot-around when a man and his young son timidly approached Abdul-Jabbar and asked, "Kareem, can we please get a picture?"

"No," Abdul-Jabbar snapped, without breaking stride.

Magic, standing nearby, could see the young boy was crushed. Johnson was not yet an All-Star, an MVP, or a household name, although he was well on his way to accomplishing all of that. He walked over to the father and said, "How about a picture with me?"

As the grateful father lined up the shot, Magic joked, "Maybe I'll be in the Hall of Fame someday too."

Twenty-two years later, Johnson sat in a boardroom representing Magic Johnson Enterprises with hopes of generating some new business. After he made his pitch, an older gentleman approached him.

"We met before, a long, long time ago," the gentleman said. "You posed for a picture with my son. Kareem blew us off, but you were very nice."

The son was a grown man, a successful attorney in Los Angeles. His father was the CEO of the company Magic was soliciting.

"My son is 29 years old now," the man said, "and he still has that picture on his wall."

As Magic walked out of the meeting with a new multimillion-dollar client in his portfolio, he thought to himself, "See, Kareem? It could have been you."

Although his introspective personality was a mystery to Magic and the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar handled his diminished role with dignity in 1986–87. He passed the mantle to Magic without complaint, remained a key member of the team's nucleus, and on any given day could submit a vintage Abdul-Jabbar night, sweeping hook and all.

"When he was on top of his game, no one could touch him," Magic said.

Riley was banking on Abdul-Jabbar and Magic to seamlessly carry his team onward together. The addition of Thompson provided LA with the added depth and younger legs in the front court. Scott and Worthy were reliable scorers, Cooper was still able to thwart Bird more effectively than anyone else in the league, and Green and Rambis understood and accepted their roles. The 198687 season proved to be a Career Best Effort across the board. Every single player improved at least 1 percent (and some as much as 20 percent) in his designated category.

Magic thrived in his new role as playmaker and scorer. He led the team in minutes, field goals attempted, scoring, assists, and steals. Riley reduced Abdul-Jabbar's playing time and held him out of practice more frequently. Nobody minded; the strategy had its distinct advantages.

"The scrimmages were better when Kareem wasn't playing," Magic said. "We'd run up and down and up and down with no big man to slow us down."

"Get your rest, Cap," Magic told Abdul-Jabbar after the spirited sessions ended. "Just be ready for the fourth quarter."

Los Angeles posted victories in 12 of its first 14 games. They won all but one of their games in March. In February, they streaked out to a 29–0 lead against the Sacramento Kings and prevented them from scoring a single field goal in the first quarter. When the shell-shocked Kings finally converted on a pair of free throws, Riley called time.

The Lakers gathered around him, anticipating some compliments for holding an NBA team that featured scorers Reggie Theus, Eddie Johnson, and Otis Thorpe without a point for so long.

"Goddammit!" Riley roared. "Why did you foul him and put him at the line?!"

The most meaningful Lakers regular season win was a 117–110 victory over the Celtics in December. Boston was in the midst of a 48-game winning streak at home when the Lakers, touting themselves as "Celtic busters," went in and manhandled their East Coast enemies. Magic reveled in silencing the hostile Boston crowd with his no-look feeds and his new offensive arsenal. Bird winced when he watched his rival confidently bank in a jumper from the left side of the floor with the shot clock ticking down.

"He was so much more offensive-minded," Bird said. "He controlled tempo, got them running. Before, he'd always pass off to the wings. Now, all of a sudden, you weren't sure if he might take it in himself."

The Lakers developed a lockdown mentality on the road that had been missing in past seasons. It became a constant topic of conversation on the plane flights. Magic was the instigator, reminding his team, "It's the 12 of us against all these people who hate us. Let's shut them all up."

The Celtics were strangely silent during that December loss to the Lakers. Although they were still among the elite in the East, the luck of the Irish, which had presided over the storied franchise for decades, had been decimated in one memorable night.

Boston held the number-two pick in the 1986 draft and selected Maryland forward Len Bias, a versatile forward who was, by all accounts, a sure bet to be an NBA star. Auerbach envisioned Bias as his bridge from one dynasty to the next. The plan was for him to learn alongside three future Hall of Fame players, then assume his place in the pantheon of Celtics greats.

Instead, after a night of partying to celebrate his new life as a Celtic, Bias collapsed and died of cocaine intoxication.

It was a devastating tragedy and a sobering lesson for the Celtics on how to conduct their predraft business. Auerbach had always relied on word of mouth from his considerable college sources for his background checks. Maryland coach Lefty Driesell, one of Auerbach's trusted contacts, had vouched for Bias's character. In the wake of Bias's death, Driesell was forced to resign and Maryland embarked on a thorough investigation of its student-athletes. In turn, the NBA and the Celtics began refining their research of draft picks.

Teams began hiring private investigators to determine the character of the athletes they were considering. Yet even that was an inexact science. Boston had used a service to investigate Bias and even subjected him to a predraft drug test. He passed with no trouble.

Bias's shocking death was the first of many bad omens. Bill Walton broke his pinky in a pickup basketball game, and then was pedaling on a stationary bike when he experienced a sharp pain in his right foot, which until that moment had been the healthy one. He was shelved until March, and even then was only an intermittent contributor the rest of the season.

Scott Wedman was the next to fall, with a heel injury that all but ended his Celtics career. Overnight the vaunted "Green Team" was reduced to a bunch of big names in expensive street clothes.

Kevin McHale, during a game in Phoenix on March 11, was jockeying for a rebound when he tromped on Larry Nance's foot. Although McHale was unaware of it at the time, he had suffered a stress fracture. He exacerbated the injury by continuing to play on it, and on March 27, when the Celts played Chicago, John Hefferon, the Bulls' team physician, looked at the x-rays and told McHale he had broken the navicular bone in his right foot. By the time the Celtics played the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, McHale was aware that he was risking permanent damage by continuing to play. Even team doctor Thomas Silva conceded that he wasn't sure if McHale should be competing. Bird was not nearly as ambiguous in his opinion.

"Kevin, go home," Bird said.

"I'll be all right, Birdie," McHale answered. "You know you wouldn't go home either."

McHale was right. Bird's back was also a major worry. He needed to receive an hour of painful mobilization therapy from Dan Dyrek daily; otherwise, he couldn't loosen his back enough to play.