Legs Are Likely to Go Before That Big Smile

By Mike Downey

May 22, 1985 12 AM PT

There is decorum at the Forum. The Lakers are in rehearsal for tonight’s playoff game, a game that could catapult them to the NBA final. This is serious business, serious basketball, so there isn’t supposed to be any horsing around. There isn’t even supposed to be any pigging around.

“We usually play P-I-G,” Magic Johnson says. “It’s quicker than H-O-R-S-E.”

Magic strolls over to Byron Scott’s favorite spot on the court. Well, sort of on the court. “He goes over here, behind the seats,” Magic says, stepping behind the chairs reserved for the fat-walleted customers at courtside. “And bang, he hits the jumpers.” Every time one of Scott’s moon shots from half-court or off-court goes into the basket, the shooter behind him is one letter closer to P-I-G, and $25 poorer when he reaches G.

Magic doesn’t care. He is still having a good time. “Still having big fun,” he says.

Which is why, when practice is over, he no longer can be businesslike. He comes moving and grooving from one end of the court to the other, shoulders stooped, arms pressed to his side, hands together in front of him, index fingers pointed down, walking like the coolest dude who ever hit Inglewood. He is high-fiving and jiving and calling Kareem Abdul-Jabbar “Cap” and mussing Kurt Rambis’ hair.

Like a big kid. That’s what Earvin (Magic) Johnson looks like. That’s what Earvin (Magic) Johnson acts like.

He knows how serious Game 5 with the Denver Nuggets will be. He knows the Lakers can return to the NBA championship series with one more win. He also knows that with his seventh assist tonight, he will pass Jerry West to become professional basketball’s all-time leader in postseason assists. Since he knows how long it took West to pile up those 970 assists, this means that he, Magic, must not be a kid anymore himself.

“I know. I know,” Magic says after Tuesday’s practice. “I’m gettin’ to be an NBA old man now. You take a look at yourself and suddenly realize you sure ain’t no rookie anymore. You been around awhile. The big thing is, you know pretty soon somebody’s gonna come along and go after all of your records.”

Occupational hazard.

“You got that right,” Magic says.

Still, there’s plenty of years left to set lots and lots of records.

“Oh, I won’t play too long--31, 32, that’s it,” says Magic, who will turn 26 in August. “The way I play, I’d never be able to keep up the pace any older than that. I’ll just go off and run my businesses and leave the playin’ to somebody else.

“What you hope for is, well, like Jerry West. You go down the street and you stop somebody and you say, ‘Jerry West,’ and they just stand there noddin’ because they know exactly who you mean. That’s the way I’d want it to be with me.”

And that’s the way it probably will be.

Of course, records mean different things to different people. To Jerry West, for instance, they mean very little. “Most of those things are so meaningless,” the Laker general manager says, in the incongruous setting of an office decorated with personal mementoes. “Some people take those things a lot more seriously than others. Wilt (Chamberlain) almost died when Kareem got his scoring record. But I honestly don’t care about those things. There are a lot of individual accomplishments that I’m proud of, but the only thing that really counts is winning.”

West is happy to see a team player such as Magic get anything he can get. Assist records themselves, though, tend to be a little warped, as far as West is concerned. “What I hate to see, are some of those passes that they call assists,” he says. “A guy throws a long pass down court, another guy catches it . . . dribble, dribble, dribble, 10 dribbles, lays it up, and the guy who threw the pass gets an assist. Heck, that’s no assist.”

Magic Johnson will take what comes. He just goes out to have a ball, playing ball. When a song is written called “Guys Just Want to Have Fun,” Magic will be the guy it is written about. He plays basketball in the Forum the way a kid plays with a pail in a sandbox. Wherever he goes, he has fun.

Back in Michigan, for instance, when he sees his family and friends in the summer, Magic has fun. Of course, they don’t know him as Magic there. “I’m still Earvin,” he says, “or E.J., or Big Fella . . . “ He thinks about this a second. “Or sometimes just ‘Yo.’ ”

When a guy from Michigan shows up at the Forum, and asks Magic to autograph some glossy photographs and posters, Magic says sure. He sits at a table in an upstairs lounge and signs one for somebody called “Snake.” Then, he signs another. Then, another. Finally, he is asked if he will jot something on an extremely large, full-color poster of himself for a girl named Jeannie.

He studies it for a second, a felt pen in his hand.

Then, he leans forward and signs it:

“To Jeannie. This is what I look like. Earvin (Magic) Johnson.”

It is just a little something to remember him by.