Magic Johnson is one of the great icons of NBA basketball. One of the league’s All-Time most popular athletes, Magic took the world by storm during his prime and retired for the final time in 1996 as one of the greatest players to ever dribble a basketball.
Today, at 63, Magic doesn’t do a whole lot of playing — but that doesn’t mean he’s out of stories to tell.
In his guest appearance on ‘All the Smoke’ podcast with Stephen Jackson and Paul Pierce, Magic spoke candidly about his life and career and even responded to a story about a pickup game between him and the former Celtics champion.
According to Pierce, he and Magic used to occasionally run games at the gym that often got very competitive. On the podcast, he recalled one very specific showdown that risked giving Magic a pickup game loss years after he retired from the Lakers.
(via ‘All the Smoke’ podcast)
“I’ve never seen him lose a game in a pickup run,” Pierce said. “And Magic’s about 10 years retired already. So he comes and I’m guarding him in the post. The game is tied up 6-6 we going to 7. Magic goes up, shoots the hook, I challenge the shot. He missed the hook, we get the rebound and throw it ahead and we score. Game over. Magic looked down like ‘nah, nah, that don’t count. That’s a foul.’ I didn’t even touch him! He get the ball back, get in the post, shoot the hook, and win the game. Ain’t no way you can beat Magic.”
Paul Pierce was on All The Smoke telling a story of how Magic Johnson refused to lose a pickup game against him 💀💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/ON5IhuLBRe
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) January 12, 2023
Since Magic was already retired by that point, we can only assume it was his ego that prompted him to call a phantom foul on Pierce during a random pickup game. Nevertheless, he came out with the win and another great story to tell about his highly competitive nature. As seen in the video, he was having a good laugh about the whole thing, and it really was a wholesome moment.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about his tenure as President of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Why Did Magic Johnson Leave The Lakers?
Johnson doesn’t currently have a role in the league, but he used to run the biggest team in the sport.
Magic was the President of Basketball Operations for the Purple and Gold for a short time, but he stepped down after a falling out with Rob Pelinka.
“I wanted to fire Luke Walton. I said, ‘Jeanie, your man don’t have it. He doesn’t make adjustments with in the game,” said Magic. “I hate to tell you that because I know you love him. Can he get better?’ I said, ‘I’m hoping that he can but I don’t think he can.’ Other people in the Lakers, the non-basketball people, are trying to tell me that I can’t make those calls. To preserve the love and my friendship with Jeanie, I felt it was the best to step down.”
To make that kind of call and essentially walk out of the job couldn’t have been easy for the Lakers legend. And while it was a shocking move at the time, it was clearly the right one for Magic, who hasn’t looked back since.
Now, he can get back to having fun and telling some more amazing stories, as we heard on ‘All the Smoke.’
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