'They Call Me Magic' a reminder that Magic Johnson's life wasn't always, well, magical
A revival of interest in Magic Johnson continues to flood the airwaves and digital realm.
The latest, the four-part docuseries “They Call Me Magic,” debuts Friday on Apple TV+ and provides a nostalgic look at the NBA legend and former Michigan State basketball star’s live on and off the court.
The 62-year-old Lansing, Michigan, native Tuesday echoed much of the focus of the documentary: His hometown and home state remains a major part of who he remains today.
“I always keep in touch with everybody from Lansing and that lives in Michigan,” said Johnson, who said he spoke with former MSU teammate (and current Pistons broadcaster) Greg Kelser on Monday. “I keep up to speed with how Michigan State is doing, whether it's basketball, football, volleyball — you name it — because I love being a Spartan. And I love the state of Michigan and trying to create jobs for people who live there, create businesses there. So that's never gonna leave me.”
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Johnson and those close to him in the documentary give plenty of insight into many of the success and troubles — in basketball, in his personal life and in business — that have followed him since he burst into the public consciousness as 15-year-old sophomore phenom Earvin Johnson Jr. at Lansing Everett High in 1974-75. That was when Lansing sportswriter Fred Stabley Jr. coined the nickname, “Magic;” Johnson has since become one of the most widely recognized mononymous faces in American history. The series jumps between his glory in winning the 1979 national title at MSU and going on to NBA success and his aborted NBA comeback attempts after being diagnosed with HIV in 1991.
Almost all of his family, including his parents and children, are interviewed along with close friends and business leaders he met along the way. So are contemporaries Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a Hall of Fame roster of NBA players. That includes one of Johnson’s closest friends, with whom he had a very public falling out with.
Detroit Pistons legend Isiah Thomas.
In one of the more insightful portions of the four-hour series, Johnson and Thomas discuss the friendship they built in the early 1980s after Thomas arrived in Detroit. The two spent countless offseason hours together working on their games and hanging out, with Johnson saying they took the train between Lansing and Thomas’ hometown of Chicago. Thomas visited Lansing and helped Johnson with his youth basketball clinics, and they held high-level summer pickup games that wowed the local basketball public. Johnson helped at Thomas’ camps as well.
Then came the 1988 NBA Finals.
Then-Lakers coach Pat Riley, in the documentary, says he and some of Johnson's teammates were not fond of the closeness of Johnson and Thomas and how the two friends would greet each other with a peck on the cheek.
"I don't think our players liked that. I know I didn't like that,” Riley said in the series. “I don't like fraternizing or any of that kind of stuff.”
Johnson also admitted Riley “came to me and said, 'Hey, would I go after Isaiah if that situation presented itself?' ”
Cut to footage from Game 3 at the Pontiac Silverdome. Thomas drives down the right side toward the basket. Johnson sees him, comes across the lane and delivers a forearm and elbow to Thomas' neck and face. Thomas got in Johnson’s face and shoved him.
“That was the start of us not being friends and not really talking anymore,” Johnson said. “For me, it's always been winning at all costs. And if it costs me friendships, it just costs me that.”
The Lakers beat the Pistons in seven games that year. Thomas and the Bad Boys avenged the loss by winning it all in 1989, then repeated in 1990 by beating Portland. Their relationship was further strained when Thomas was left off the U.S.'s 1992 Olympics “Dream Team.”
It took until 2017 for Johnson and Thomas to repair their friendship with a tear-filled embrace and kiss on the cheek during an NBA TV interview.
“When you're talking about winning, you're talking about dominance,” Thomas reflected in the documentary. “Can I mentally break you? That elicits emotions and passions and love and hate. Our relationship, it came apart because the championship journey is about the insatiable appetite for wanting to win. No mercy.”
“They Call Me Magic” works similar to ESPN’s “The Last Dance” in shining light on Jordan’s legacy, though Johnson’s documentary does not examine the “Showtime”-era Los Angeles Lakers early as in-depth as Jordan’s did.
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It does, however, illuminate many of the highly dramatized events shown in the ongoing HBO series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” which debuted in March. Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West this week have been highly critical of that stylized and exaggerated look into the Lakers, while Johnson publicly said he would not watch it and did not comment on the HBO show Tuesday.
Johnson’s documentary spends a considerable amount of time on his private side, including the long and winding relationship with his wife, Cookie, which began during their time together at MSU. It deals with their on-and-off relationship over the ensuing decade prior to their marriage, just before his HIV diagnosis while she was pregnant with their son, E.J. It also focuses on how they handled the shock of that diagnosis and became public voices for AIDS awareness, then how they also became LGBTQ awareness advocates when E.J. came out as gay in 2013.
And it delves into his business ventures and entrepreneurship, including being one of the owners of MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers. It even touches upon his ill-fated 1998 talk show “The Magic Hour,” which comedian Jimmy Kimmel — a self-professed fan of Johnson — joked in the documentary “not just one of the worst talk shows but one of the worst television shows in history.”
But what he lacked as a late-night host is overshadowed by clips of what Johnson did on the court, and an admission from Jordan that Magic and Bird don’t get nearly enough credit for having changed the NBA before his arrival in 1985.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret,” Johnson said Tuesday. “I love watching the doc series, because I get to see myself play.”
Follow Chris Solari on Twitter @chrissolari.