Los Angeles Lakers icon Magic Johnson appeared on the latest episode of Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, where he spoke about his concerns surrounding load management in the NBA today. Johnson believes it’s hurting the league enormously and shared Michael Jordan’s thoughts on the subject too.
“I love the NBA game,” Johnson said. “But then I turn on to a game, right, and the stars are not playing because of load management. It’s hurting the game.
“I was with Michael Jordan — not last summer, but the summer before last — we ran into each other in Europe,” Johnson continued. “And he says, ‘Earvin, I don’t know why these guys…’ Because if you look at his record, he almost played every game like five or six times throughout his career. He didn’t miss one game. He played in every game.”
Jordan prided himself on being out there on the court every night for his teams during his storied career. He played all 82 games in nine of his 15 seasons in the NBA and can’t wrap his head around the fact that today’s players are willing to sit out.
It would appear Jordan and Johnson had this conversation at the former’s 60th birthday party on Feb. 17, 2023. Magic shared during an interview with Today that they had spoken for 30 minutes about load management at the party. Both men aren’t fans of the concept, to say the least.
Jordan had actually speculated way back in 2003 that load management would be a problem for the NBA. He saw it coming from a mile away but the league seemingly did not.
Getting back to Johnson, he never played 82 games in a season in his career but that wasn’t by choice. Co-host Byron Scott shared later in this episode that the Lakers’ former head athletic trainer Gary Vitti used to protect Johnson from himself.
“He wouldn’t let him put his uniform on when he couldn’t play in the game because he knew he would tear the damn jersey off and go in the game,” Scott said. “So he was like, ‘No, no, no, you can put the sweats on, but you’re going to have a shirt. No trunks and all that because we don’t want you ripping them off and going in the game.’ Because that’s what you would do.”
The players just had a different mindset back then. Johnson wishes players today wanted to play all the time too and believes their sitting out is leading to fans not bothering to tune into games.
Magic Johnson Didn’t Watch The Entire All-Star Weekend For The First Time This Year
Another big problem for the NBA along with load management is the All-Star Game. It has become a bit of a joke now with how little effort the players give and Johnson doesn’t have much interest in tuning into any of the festivities on that weekend anymore.
“This is the first time in history, now I’ve been associated with this league 46 years or so, I didn’t watch the entire weekend,” Johnson said. “I didn’t go, didn’t watch… You don’t have to give 100% but you got to give 80, you got to give 75, make it a game, and make it competitive.”
Johnson is also disappointed that the big stars don’t want to participate in the Slam Dunk Contest anymore, as was the case in his day. He also cannot comprehend why players don’t want to be the face of the NBA. Johnson is just unhappy, in all, with all that’s happening right now.
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