Magic’s Moment Finally Arrives; He’s NBA’s MVP

When Magic Johnson walked into the gym at Loyola Marymount Monday morning, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the first to stick out a hand.

Soon, the rest of his Laker teammates had gathered in a circle around Johnson. Practice for tonight’s Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against the Seattle SuperSonics would have to wait.

“M-V-P,” the Lakers chanted. Then, one by one, they spoke.

“How does it feel to be the best player in the world?” Mychal Thompson said.

“How can I answer that?” Magic Johnson said.

Michael Cooper hugged him.

“Guys hugged me, they grabbed me,” Johnson said later, after the Forum press conference in which he received the trophy as Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Assn. “I just felt it. That was even better than saying anything.”

Johnson didn’t expect too many words to be exchanged Monday night, when he planned to call the man to whom he dedicated his award: Earvin Johnson Sr., his father.

“He’s going to cry,” Johnson said. “We’re probably going to cry together.”

Before the tears, however, came the cheers for only the second Laker ever to win the MVP award. Abdul-Jabbar is a six-time winner, three times with the Lakers, three times with the Milwaukee Bucks. Johnson also became only the third guard in NBA history to win the award, and the first in 23 years. Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics won in 1957, Oscar Robertson of the Cincinnati Royals in 1964.

NBA Commissioner David Stern flew in from New York, happy to address a subject that didn’t have to do with the allegations of drugs and gambling that have hounded the league in recent months.

Laker owner Jerry Buss was there, modestly acknowledging that he knew--from the time previous owner Jack Kent Cooke had won the coin flip that gave the Lakers the draft rights to Johnson in 1979--that Magic “was destined to become the finest basketball player ever to play the game.” Buss laid out $76 million for the privilege of owning Magic and the Lakers, so who’s going to argue?

Laker General Manager Jerry West, perhaps the best guard never to be named MVP, praised Johnson as a unique player, one who had brought a “special presence” to the franchise.

Robertson, who now owns a chemical company in Cincinnati and part of a trucking firm, had been invited by the league to present the award, but had to be in Chicago on business.

“If you see Magic, tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t be out there,” Robertson said by telephone Monday afternoon. “He deserves it, not only this time, but a couple of times before, too.”

Johnson received 65 first-place votes and a total of 733 points in the voting by a 78-member panel of sportswriters and sportscasters. Chicago’s Michael Jordan, the league’s leading scorer with a 37.1-point scoring average, finished second, with 449 points, including 10 first-place votes.

Boston’s Larry Bird, who had won the award the last three seasons, finished third. Had Bird, the life-long rival from whom Johnson draws much of his motivation, called to congratulate Magic?

“I’m going to call him and thank him more than he’s got to call me,” Johnson said with a laugh. “I’m going to tell him, ‘If you want to be off next year a little bit, that’s fine, too.’ ”

Johnson, who is in his eighth season with the Lakers, said he had begun to believe that he might never win the award. When did his teammates find out he was MVP?

“Since the season started,” Thompson said.

“He came back (from last season’s playoff defeat to Houston) with fire in his eyes. You could tell he was on a mission, that he wasn’t going to let this team fail.”

The award was two or three years overdue, Thompson said.

“Bird was an honorable MVP, but there would have been nothing wrong with giving co-MVPs. That wouldn’t have been playing chicken, either.

“Maybe they can alternate the rest of their career, because nobody’s more valuable than those two.”

Laker Coach Pat Riley, asked how he planned to keep Johnson humble, jokingly said he’d already had to slap his franchise player around in practice. But then he turned serious.

“He’s not only humble, but you have to be humbled to be humble,” Riley said.

“If any person on this team has experienced humiliation a number of times, it’s been him. . . . In ‘80-81, he was blamed for us losing (to Houston, when he put up an airball with the game on the line), in ‘81-82 he was blamed (for Paul Westhead’s being fired), he was blamed for choking against the Celtics in ‘84, he’s always been blamed.

“That goes with his territory, but he feels it. He gives so much, he puts himself in the middle of everything to win, that when he doesn’t win, people say, ‘Well, that’s the way it goes for you.’

“But he’s a winner, an MVP, and the award is long overdue. I couldn’t be happier for him.”

Johnson, told of what Riley had said, nodded slowly.

“This eases the pain of everything that ever went bad,” he said. “It also enhances everything in the game that has been good. This takes it to a new level. This is a higher fun than I’ve ever had.”

West mentioned that of all the things Johnson has accomplished, most have been team-oriented. “But as an individual honor, this is something you’ll cherish all your life,” said the man who never was singled out in such a fashion.

Plenty of players, Riley said, are quick to say they would give up an individual award to win a championship. Johnson, his coach said, is one of the few who mean it.

“Everything he gets is a residual of winning,” Riley said. “That’s what he’s all about.”

Johnson indicated as much when asked what was left for him to accomplish.

“More championships,” he said. “Diamond rings. That’s it. That’s all I live for. That’s why I play.”

Robertson, who is 48 and retired in 1974, said that voter ignorance was the main reason Johnson hadn’t already won the award. It also helped, he said, that there wasn’t a “truly quality big man” in the league this season.

“Over the years, Magic should have won a couple of times,” Robertson said. “Jerry West should have won one, too.

“The importance of the big guy has been overemphasized to a great degree. Unless you have good guards, you can’t win.”

Stern said Monday that Johnson had added the term, “triple-double” to basketball vernacular. True enough, but Robertson routinely compiled double figures in points, assists and rebounds. In a five-year period, he averaged triple doubles.

Maybe that’s why he scoffed at the notion that Johnson has revolutionized basketball.

“Magic does exactly what a premier guard is supposed to do,” Robertson said. “ . . . Unless you get a guy 8 feet tall who can run like Magic, jump like Jordan, and has the coordination of your other guard in L.A., Cooper, no one’s going to revolutionize the game.

“My day’s gone, and Magic’s done a great job. There have been a lot of great guards, and he’s one of them.”

Robertson isn’t ready to nominate Johnson as the greatest ever.

“Time is going to take care of that,” he said. “Let’s have the test of time, then we’ll see. The greatest--who can say?”

Johnson is at the peak of his career physically, Robertson said. The biggest difference he sees in him now is that he’s smarter. “He knows how to get the lesser players involved,” Robertson said.

And he wins.

“To be recognized as a great athlete, you’ve got to win,” Robertson said. “Unless Chicago gets rid of some of the dead wood around Michael (Jordan) and they play as a team, people are not going to think of Michael Jordan in the same light as Magic Johnson.”

On Monday, the spotlight shone on Johnson alone.

“I hope I never wake up,” he said.

Tonight’s game will be televised on Prime Ticket and broadcast on KLAC (570). . . . Game 3 on Saturday in Seattle will start at 4 p.m. and be televised on KHJ (Channel 9) and cable station WTBS. . . . Few people expect another low-scoring affair like Game 1, in which the Lakers scored a season-low 92 points and the SuperSonics matched their season low of 87 (Jan. 24 against Atlanta). . . . The Lakers were out-rebounded by Seattle, 40-34, the first time they have been beaten on the boards in the playoffs. Xavier McDaniel and Alton Lister had 10 rebounds apiece for Seattle. . . . A.C. Green, who is averaging 13.1 points and 8.3 rebounds a game, had just 3 points and 5 rebounds Saturday. . . . James Worthy, who had 27 points in Game 1, has led the Lakers in scoring in five of their nine playoff games. He’s averaging 22.9 points a game. . . . The Lakers had 11 steals Saturday, 4 by Michael Cooper. . . . Saturday was the first time that Magic Johnson has played 40 minutes in a playoff game this spring.

NBA MVPs

(Selected by NBA players until 1979-80; by media since 1980-81)

1986-87 Magic Johnson Lakers 1985-86 Larry Bird Boston 1984-85 Larry Bird Boston 1983-84 Larry Bird Boston 1982-83 Moses Malone Philadelphia 1981-82 Moses Malone Houston 1980-81 Julius Erving Philadelphia 1979-80 K. Abdul-Jabbar Lakers 1978-79 Moses Malone Houston 1977-78 Bill Walton Portland 1976-77 K. Abdul-Jabbar Lakers 1975-76 K. Abdul-Jabbar Lakers 1974-75 Bob McAdoo Buffalo 1973-74 K. Abdul-Jabbar Milwaukee 1972-73 Dave Cowens Boston 1971-72 K. Abdul-Jabbar Milwaukee 1970-71 Lew Alcindor Milwaukee 1969-70 Willis Reed New York 1968-69 Wes Unseld Baltimore 1967-68 Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia 1965-66 Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia 1964-65 Bill Russell Boston 1963-64 Oscar Robertson Cincinnati 1962-63 Bill Russell Boston 1961-62 Bill Russell Boston 1960-61 Bill Russell Boston 1959-60 Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia 1958-59 Bob Pettit St. Louis 1957-58 Bill Russell Boston 1956-57 Bob Cousy Boston 1955-56 Bob Pettit St. Louis