How the Magic Johnson-led Lakers’ Showtime dynasty nearly never happened

Sunday evening marks the launch of the HBO sequence “Profitable Time,” which relies on Jeff Pearlman’s e-book “Showtime” in regards to the eponymous Lakers’ dynasty of the Eighties. The muse for one of many trendy NBA’s most storied championship runs was laid in 1979, when Jack Kent Cooke bought the franchise to Dr. Jerry Buss. Earlier than the Magic of the Showtime years, nevertheless, the Lakers wanted somewhat luck.

Earvin Johnson wished a hamburger.

He was a 19-year-old child, keen on burgers and pizza and French Fries and every other delicacies assured to dam the arteries. Positive, he occurred to be sitting within the presence of Lakers proprietor Jack Kent Cooke, maybe the world’s least possible man to ever order a burger of any kind. However, hey, Johnson was hungry.

Scratch that. Ravenous.

It was a heat Could afternoon in Los Angeles, and probably the most dynamic participant to grace faculty basketball since Louisiana State’s Pete Maravich a decade earlier was on the town to determine whether or not he ought to return to Michigan State College for his junior season or soar to an expert sports activities league that had been crippled by poor TV rankings, participant indifference and a dwindling fan base. On the one hand, in East Lansing, Michigan, Johnson — an area child out of Everett Excessive College — was a king. He had been nicknamed Magic as a fifteen-year-old highschool freshman and now, having simply led the Spartans to their first NCAA males’s basketball title, he couldn’t stroll the streets with out being mobbed. “He actually was past reproach,” stated George Fox, his highschool coach. “Earvin may do no improper.”

There was, nevertheless, the siren name of the NBA and particularly the siren name of Jack Kent Cooke’s thick pockets. On April 19, 1979, the Lakers and Chicago Bulls had engaged in a coin flip to find out which staff could be gifted with the primary decide within the upcoming draft. Coming off of a 47–35 season, Los Angeles was in such a place as a result of, three years earlier, the New Orleans Jazz dedicated one of many worst free-agent acquisitions in league historical past. The staff signed thirty-three-year-old Gail Goodrich, a long-ago star on his final legs.

On the time, league guidelines mandated that the Jazz needed to compensate Los Angeles with gamers, draft picks or cash. After a lot haggling between the Lakers and Jazz common supervisor Barry Mendelson, New Orleans agreed to half with its first-round picks in 1977 and 1979, in addition to a second-rounder in 1980. “Gail was nice,” stated Invoice Bertka, the Jazz vice chairman of basketball operations. “However he was older, and he got here to us and instantly tore his Achilles. That didn’t make us look so good. Particularly once we misplaced nearly each stinkin’ recreation in 1978–79.” (The Jazz went a league-worst 26-56.)

When Larry O’Brien, the NBA’s commissioner, ready to flip the coin contained in the league’s New York Metropolis headquarters, the Bulls and Lakers felt their futures momentarily hovering in midair. Executives from each groups listened to the toss through speaker cellphone from their respective places of work.

“Chicago, do you need to make the decision?” O’Brien requested.

“We’d like to,” replied Rod Thorn, the Bulls’ common supervisor, who was sitting contained in the staff’s places of work on the thirteenth ground of a Michigan Avenue constructing.

“Is that OK with you, Los Angeles?” O’Brien stated.

“Positive,” stated Chick Hearn, the announcer, who additionally labored as an assistant common supervisor with the staff.

“We name heads,” stated Thorn. A pause.

“OK, gents, right here we go,” boomed the deep voice of O’Brien. “The coin’s within the air.”

One other pause. One other pause. One other pause.

“Tails it’s!” O’Brien stated.

Hearn let loose a triumphant whoop.

“I used to be taking part in basketball at Venice Seaside,” stated Pat O’Brien, on the time a reporter for KNXT-TV in Los Angeles. “The information came visiting a transistor radio, and folks began screaming. ‘Sure! Sure! We’re getting Magic! We’re getting Magic!’ ”

Johnson was equally euphoric. The final place he wished to go was Chicago, what with its terrible winters (he was by no means one for the snow) and perennially dreadful basketball groups. The Bulls performed in dumpy Chicago Stadium, and put forth an uninspired roster highlighted by the likes of Andre Wakefield and Wilbur Holland. Los Angeles, in the meantime, was however a dream to Johnson, who rightly envisioned a paradise of palm timber and 80-degree days and beautiful ladies in wallet-size bikinis. Had the coin landed heads, Johnson would have returned to Michigan State for an additional season.

So right here now, a mere few weeks later, the child was itching for a hamburger, befuddled by what was positioned earlier than him. Sitting at a desk contained in the Discussion board’s Trophy Room, Johnson was on the town for lunch, certain, however actually to really feel out Cooke and the Lakers. The draft was nonetheless two months away, and each side wished to know whether or not a partnership might be reached.

Accompanying Cooke and Johnson had been Hearn and Earvin Johnson Sr. Two of the participant’s representatives, George Andrews and Dr. Charles Tucker, additionally attended. “Gents,” Cooke bellowed, “I’m going to order lunch for you! We’re going to have some marvelous fish!”

Moments later, the plates arrived. The very first thing Johnson observed was the terrible odor. He regarded down and noticed one thing bland and crusty.

Cooke noticed Johnson’s bewildered expression. “They’re sand dabs!” he stated. “Sand dabs!”

Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, left, and Magic Johnson cowl Philadelphia 76ers’ Caldwell Jones in Recreation 1 of the 1980 NBA Finals.

(Randy Rasmussen / Related Press)

Advertisement

Johnson glanced at his father, leaned shut and whispered, “I don’t know what a sand dab is.”

Cooke was nonplussed. “Younger man, are you aware how a lot a sand dab prices?”

Johnson shook his head.

“Effectively, they’re very costly,” Cooke stated. “It’s a really effective fish. Now eat.”

Johnson stabbed the listless sand dab together with his fork. Nudged it round a bit. Pushed it left. Pushed it proper. “I can’t eat this,” he stated.

Cooke was outraged. “What are you speaking about?” he stated. “Have you learnt how a lot that fish prices?”

“If it’s OK with you, Mr. Cooke, I feel I’d moderately have a hamburger and a few French fries,” Johnson stated softly. “Would that be OK?”

This was not the best way to make an excellent impression. Cooke was a proper man with formal tastes. If he wished sand dabs, dammit, everybody was consuming sand dabs. On this explicit case, nevertheless, Hearn — one of many few males who had the proprietor’s ear — intervened. “The man’s solely nineteen,” he stated. “The one factor he is aware of is hamburger and pizza.” A resigned Cooke sighed, then yelled towards the kitchen, “Can we’ve got a hamburger?”

Nothing.

“A hamburger!” he screamed. “Get the person one!”

Inside minutes, Earvin Johnson was gripping a burger. The accompanying smile was that of an eight-year-old securing a Completely happy Meal.

“You understand,” Jerry West later stated to Johnson, “no person has ever completed what you simply did to Jack Kent Cooke.”

Starting with that very second, gazing a peppy teenager biting some meat, Hearn knew one thing about Johnson sparkled. As spectacular as he was on tape, hovering previous defenders, connecting on unattainable no-look passes, spinning left, driving proper, he was considerably extra dazzling in particular person. At 6-foot-9 and 215 kilos, Johnson was a mountain of a person, the largest, strongest level guard anybody had ever seen. But it was his charisma, particularly at his precocious age, that floored individuals. On the time, the face of the Lakers was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a moody soul who brooded 100 occasions for each pressured smile.

Johnson, then again, was a ray of sunshine. He regarded individuals within the eye, shook fingers, talked about basketball as if he had been describing an exquisite lady. Oh, and that smile — that blinding, all-glowing smile. “He was only a magnet,” stated Claire Rothman, former supervisor of The Discussion board. “You wished to be round him. You wished to see him smile. You wished to have lunch with him. Earvin Johnson was completely nicknamed. He had … it.”

Magic Johnson interacts with the group after the Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers to say the 1982 NBA title.

(Lennox McLendon / Related Press)

Cooke, nevertheless, wasn’t one to be swayed simply. Although he and Buss had already agreed in precept to the sale, Cooke insisted — with out a lot argument from the soon-to-be proprietor — that the primary decide within the 1979 draft be his name.

As he watched Johnson munch on his burger, Cooke requested what the child was looking for as compensation. Conscious that Abdul-Jabbar, arguably the NBA’s greatest participant, was making $650,000 yearly, Johnson confidently uttered, “Someplace round $600,000 could be ideally suited — plus, I would like an schooling allowance so I can end at Michigan State.”

Cooke was not amused. “Let’s get one factor straight proper off,” he stated. “I’m not paying in your schooling. I put myself by way of college, and if I may do it, you actually can. Now, we are able to give you $400,000. It’s not what you’re asking for, nevertheless it’s a hell of some huge cash. And let me remind you that the Lakers have made the playoffs seventeen occasions within the final nineteen years. We’d like to have you ever, Earvin, and I hope you’ll play right here. However the staff has completed simply effective with out you.”

The one factor Johnson didn’t know on the time (and wouldn’t know till greater than 20 years later) was that, in Cooke’s thoughts, he was merely one other good faculty participant in an ocean of fine faculty gamers. Why, instantly after the draft, Cooke instructed these inside his small circle of confidants that the staff may have gone with Sidney Moncrief, the high-scoring guard from the College of Arkansas. That was the recommendation offered to him by Jerry West, the outgoing coach, who wasn’t totally satisfied a 6-foot-9 level guard would perform within the fast-paced NBA. Of all of the ex-basketball gamers working for the Lakers, West was the one Cooke trusted most.

“West wished Moncrief, and he made it very clear to Jack Kent Cooke,” stated Wealthy Levin, who coated the staff for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. “There was a robust perception, for a short time a minimum of, that Moncrief, not Magic, would wind up a Laker.”

Even when he weren’t the neatest basketball man round, Cooke understood that sports activities had been as a lot about salesmanship as on-court success. Regardless of successful 47 video games and reaching the playoffs in 1978–79, the Lakers bought out solely as soon as, and averaged 11,771 followers in an area that seated 17,505. The child sitting earlier than him was a 100,000-foot-high neon signal screaming see the Lakers! His roster, then again, was composed of standout gamers who appeared both detached (level guard Norm Nixon), shy (ahead Jamaal Wilkes) or downright offensive (Abdul-Jabbar). Cooke had waited a very long time for Abdul-Jabbar to activate the attraction. He now appeared to appreciate it will by no means occur. “Jack believed in star energy,” stated Rothman. “He deserves credit score for that.”

So, when Johnson met Cooke’s rebuff with a fair stronger one — “I suppose I’ll be going again to highschool” — the proprietor cracked. He invited Johnson and his entourage to remain the evening in Los Angeles and return to the Trophy Room the next morning. On the drive to the lodge that night, Earvin Sr. lit into his son. He was a person who’d spent years working a number of blue-collar jobs, struggling alongside his spouse, Christine, a faculty cafeteria employee, to feed their ten youngsters. Now his nineteen-year-old son was insulting sand dabs?

A statue of Magic Johnson resides outdoors Crypto.com Enviornment in downtown Los Angeles.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

“I’ve labored in a manufacturing unit my complete life for what he’s providing you for one 12 months!” Earvin Sr. stated. “And for one thing you like doing! Don’t be grasping, son.”

The following day, Cooke and Johnson negotiated forwards and backwards till, lastly, a deal was reached. The $500,000 contract made Johnson the highest-paid rookie in league historical past. With smiles throughout, Cooke let his new celebrity select lunch.

“Pizza!” Johnson stated. “Let’s order pizza.”

Cooke agreed, and earlier than lengthy, one in all America’s richest males was munching on his first-ever slice of pepperoni. “These items,” he stated, “is fairly good.”

From “SHOWTIME: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the Eighties,” revealed by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random Home, LLC. Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Pearlman. You should purchase the e-book right here