On this day (16), the Los Angeles Lakers officially retired Magic Johnson’s #32 jersey at halftime of the Celtics-Lakers game at the Great Western Forum. Johnson became the fifth Lakers player to have his jersey retired, joining Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
A consensus is definitely present among players and basketball professionals that Johnson was the best point guard the NBA has ever seen, and some even dare to say that it will be virtually impossible for someone to match his court skills.
The Lakers will hold tomorrow an online sort of celebration in addition to publishing exclusive Magic Johnson videos on YouTube. He is set to appear in at least four different T.V. shows cross country.
We wanted our STREETOPIA readers to have an idea how much of a big deal this was (and still is) in the basketball world. The Los Angeles Lakers was founded in 1947 and up until the day that Johnson had his jersey retired only four players had accomplished that before. That gives us an idea of the magnitude of his career.
Some of his stats are stellar even when analyzed today, he ranks second on the NBA's all-time assist chart (10,141), trailing only John Stockton, also led the NBA in assists five consecutive seasons (1982-83 thru 1986-87), highlighted by a career-high and single-season club record of 13.1 during the 1983-84 campaign handing out a team single-game record 24 assists three times in a row. Moreover, the Lakers averaged 59 victories per season during his career and Johnson was named NBA's Most Valuable Player three times (1980, 1982, 1987) and finally earned All-NBA First Team honors nine times in a row, which was a first time in NBA history. He is also a golden medalist in the 1992 Olympics.
Another fun fact is that Magic Johnson holds the record (by far) of advertisement campaigns not only when he played but even afterwards, it seems that his cool and always-happy personality pleases most audiences. Maybe his more-than-cool personality was best witnessed when he wore Celtics gear to Larry Bird jersey’s retirement ceremony.
Speaking of ceremonies, Kobe Bryant selected Magic Johnson to open his final NBA game because as he said that evening: “Among all of my inspirations, Magic is second to none to me”
Well, we have the same train of thought here at STREETOPIA, so we wanted to honor this February 16 like the rest of the basketball world together with our readers.
