Magic Johnson built close relationships with the two greatest shooting guards of all time. Michael Jordan has been one of his close friends since their playing days and he got to mentor Kobe Bryant on the Lakers. In a recent appearance on the Jennifer Hudson show, Magic compared the pair by calling Jordan the greatest ever but heavily complimenting Kobe by calling him special.
“He’s probably the closest dude to Michael Jordan. Michael is the greatest that’s ever played. But Kobe in terms of how he was able to, his mannerisms like Michael, the way he approached the game like Michael. Special.”
Before making the Jordan comparison, Magic got emotional while talking about attending the unveiling of Kobe’s statue outside the Crypto.com Arena.
Jennifer Hudson: “You were at the unveiling of Kobe Bryant’s statue in LA. What did that mean to you?”
Magic Johnson: “Jennifer, it was bittersweet. Vannessa, his wife, did an amazing job with her speech. I think she designed his statue too. We all miss him and him not being there. What a legacy he left, he was such an amazing young man. The things that he did for women’s sports, the ‘girl dad’, and the championships that he won. Kobe was much more than a dominant basketball player and a champion. He meant so much to the city of Los Angeles and the basketball world worldwide. The statue is the best statue I have ever seen, so give Vannessa and Jeanie Buss a lot of credit because it was amazing. We all miss him and his presence. Thank you to everyone who’s gone by and taken pictures with the statue who are Kobe fans because there’ll never be another Kobe Bryant.”
Magic knows both these stars incredibly well. Though he retired a season before Kobe joined the Lakers, he got to see his development from a late-lottery pick to a five-time NBA Champion and one of the most iconic sportsmen of all time.
Even with that, everyone understands that Jordan stays a class ahead. Johnson knows this more than anyone else, as MJ ended his and Larry Bird’s reign of dominance in the NBA by beating his Lakers for his first title in the 1991 NBA Finals.
Magic Johnson Opened Up On Playing With Michael Jordan On The Dream Team
Magic Johnson also spoke to Jennifer Hudson about playing alongside Michael Jordan on the USA Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics.
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“When you think about playing with MJ, it’s nerve-wracking because he demands excellence. Just getting him the basketball in the right place and let him do his thing with his tongue out and everything.”
Johnson then told the story of the East vs. West practice game that the Dream Team played amongst themselves.
“I tell you, we were practicing. Coach Daly had divided the team into East vs. West. All the East players, Jordan, Pippen, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, all the East guys versus the West guys, my guys. It was a tight game. Then we went up by five or six points and they called timeout. I went over to MJ and said, ‘If you don’t turn into Air Jordan, we’re gonna blow you out. I was talking trash to him. What did I do that for? He came out of that huddle and he must have scored eight or nine straight points and he was always looking at me.
Magic also revealed that he got to check something off his bucket list as he always dreamed of playing alongside Jordan and Larry Bird.
“I talked trash a little too much. But it was a pleasure because it had been on my bucket list to play with him and Larry Bird. That was on my bucket list and I got a chance to play with both on the Dream Team. We blew everybody out by over 42 points a game.”
Johnson also spoke about playing cards with Jordan till 5 A.M. every night, revealing that they both lost a lot of money to each other.
That didn’t matter, as Jordan averaged 14.9 points and 4.8 assists while Magic averaged 8.0 points and 5.5 assists in a dominant Gold medal run at the 1992 Olympics. Team USA outscored opponents by a total of 350 points in just eight games, establishing themselves as one of the greatest teams of all time.
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