Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals

Anyone watching this on HBO?

30 minutes in, and it's really good.

painful to see magic unexplicably running out the clock, worthy throwing away the ball, losing a couple of OT games in the finals

damn!!!

mmmm it was Worse watching it live!!!

UncLaker wrote:mmmm it was Worse watching it live!!!

Sadly, I co-sign this.

Watched it and it was really good...

I wasn't around for the rivalry, so its always fun to watch these.

Pig Miller wrote:painful to see magic unexplicably running out the clock, worthy throwing away the ball, losing a couple of OT games in the finals

damn!!!

Yeah, Lakers should've beat "those guys" in '84 but they got revenge in '85 (clinched it at the Gah-den) and '87 (blew them out after Worthy dived for the loose ball and passed it to Magic while airborne).

Anytime i watch anything about Magic and the Showtime Lakers, i just want to say, "Thank You" for the championships and the good times. Magic is my all time favorite Laker. He will never be replaced. He was special. His charisma was perfect for Los Angeles at the time. Then you think about Chick Hearn, Worthy, Cooper, Scott, Riley, the Forum, just everything about the 80's Showtime Lakers. Five championships. What a special time.

^^^^^
Magic did make those Showtime Lakers fun to watch.
This LAKER era of basketball not so much!! (all the NBA)
SOME times i wonder of these guys are having fun out there?

Kobe is like a mix of Magic and Bird.
Like Magic, he was part of the lakers, under periods of extreme criticsm from the media, and going to many championships (winning too).
But like bird, he has the personality, clutchness, and will. Also has sort of a rival (in Lebron) with the opposite personality.

I thought the show was excellent. Even though I've heard much of the story and saw most of those series, it was so compelling to watch it all again in this light. Great stuff. Watched it with my son and he loved it too. He couldn't believe the highlight passes Magic was throwing down.

I got a new respect for Larry Bird. He didnt want to be the Great White Hope. In the 80s, I thought he played on that theme but he didnt. The media formulated my opinion of Bird. The country was so damn split on racial lines back then with Magic and Bird. Magic was winning but Bird got the credit/glory. Bird just wanted to win. I truly believe he didnt care for the accolades. Props to them both.

pureuncut100 wrote:I got a new respect for Larry Bird. He didnt want to be the Great White Hope. In the 80s, I thought he played on that theme but he didnt. The media formulated my opinion of Bird. The country was so damn split on racial lines back then with Magic and Bird. Magic was winning but Bird got the credit/glory. Bird just wanted to win. I truly believe he didnt care for the accolades. Props to them both.

I've always respected Larry Bird. Like you said, he only wanted to win, and nothing else mattered to him. He's a tough competitor, and a genuinely nice guy (except when he was playing the game, of course). As for the racial split and media spin, I disagree with you somewhat. Perhaps Magic should've won ROY (not that Bird wasn't worthy of it, he clearly was), but other than that, Magic got as much praise as Bird, maybe more. It's a shame Bird's career was cut short by injury and Magic's by disease, their rivalry died too soon. May both of them be with us for many more years.

i love watching the old highlights of the lakers/celtics getting into it with each other.

it was a healthy competitiveness with one another. of course there's the rambis/mchale clothesline, kareem throwing that elbow at bird's face, coop getting into bird's face and then subsequently getting bodied into the camera men, ainge throwing the ball at worthy's(?) back on the inbounds, even magic and bird having words after a hard foul

Lets Go Lakers wrote:Anytime i watch anything about Magic and the Showtime Lakers, i just want to say, "Thank You" for the championships and the good times. Magic is my all time favorite Laker. He will never be replaced. He was special. His charisma was perfect for Los Angeles at the time. Then you think about Chick Hearn, Worthy, Cooper, Scott, Riley, the Forum, just everything about the 80's Showtime Lakers. Five championships. What a special time.

agreed, back then it was all about winning while having fun. there weren't any drama (at least not publicly), everyone knows their role, if not, Magic and Riley would be in their faces. sounded refreshing nowadays isn't it.

mamatheregoesthatman wrote:

pureuncut100 wrote:I got a new respect for Larry Bird. He didnt want to be the Great White Hope. In the 80s, I thought he played on that theme but he didnt. The media formulated my opinion of Bird. The country was so damn split on racial lines back then with Magic and Bird. Magic was winning but Bird got the credit/glory. Bird just wanted to win. I truly believe he didnt care for the accolades. Props to them both.

I've always respected Larry Bird. Like you said, he only wanted to win, and nothing else mattered to him. He's a tough competitor, and a genuinely nice guy (except when he was playing the game, of course). As for the racial split and media spin, I disagree with you somewhat. Perhaps Magic should've won ROY (not that Bird wasn't worthy of it, he clearly was), but other than that, Magic got as much praise as Bird, maybe more. It's a shame Bird's career was cut short by injury and Magic's by disease, their rivalry died too soon. May both of them be with us for many more years.

That was illuminating to see how truly color blind Larry was. I thought Isaiah and Rodman had a point at the time but what they said was pretty mean-spirited calling Bird overrated because he was white. Individual awards like MVP tend to really cause contention.

The coolest thing to me was just how human Larry and Earvin are. Their friendship and competition is so deservedly legendary! Great to hear more about that commercial shoot that brought them together and melted the ice between them. You can just see Larry's mom cooking it up and taking in Earvin, and he thinking so much of the similarity between her and his own mom. Great stuff. Man, I knew Larry struggled with his back, but never knew the extent. I used to hate the guy because he was a Celtic and our archrival. But he's a class guy in the way he was friends with Earvin.

Yeah I wasn't alive in the 80s but I always like seeing stuff like that. I thought it was going to be a boring documentary but HBO is solid with those, I was really entertained. I didn't realize how big the sub plot of white VS. Black was in the whole magic bird thing. I still have about a half-hour left, but so far I love it. The competitiveness was crazy back then between Lakers and Celtics. Part of why I am sad that Stern has such a tight leash with suspensions now. And I had no idea the NBA was struggling SO much before Magic and Bird revamped it.

LakerFan1235 wrote:Yeah I wasn't alive in the 80s but I always like seeing stuff like that. I thought it was going to be a boring documentary but HBO is solid with those, I was really entertained. I didn't realize how big the sub plot of white VS. Black was in the whole magic bird thing. I still have about a half-hour left, but so far I love it. The competitiveness was crazy back then between Lakers and Celtics. Part of why I am sad that Stern has such a tight leash with suspensions now. And I had no idea the NBA was struggling SO much before Magic and Bird revamped it.

The white vs. black thing was the reason why that rivalry was so big in the 80s. It was the reason why Larry Holmes vs. Jerry Cooney was the highest grossing heavy weight fight in history especially if you adjust it for inflation (also in the 80s). For these reasons, Larry Bird had a bigger role in bringing back basketball that Magic. Its just a fact.

Its funny, the Lakers won 5 championships and had a lot of success after the final series between Boston and LA played out. Boston has been crap for the most part. Many people, including myself, think the reason is that Boston APPEARED to try to win with white players. When free agency came around, no one wanted to go there. Boston has just now started to get rid of that stigma. Its funny if you think about it, of their handful of black contributors, Dennis Johnson had freckles and Robert Parrish was Indian.

As an old head I have been fortunate to have lived to see the NBA's two greatest player rivalries, Wilt-Russell and Magic-Bird. Russ and Wilt started of as pals and then became distant whereas in the case of Magic and Bird-it was just the opposite. I agreed completly with Bryant Gumbel, Jordan gets way too much credit for "saving the NBA", that's a bunch of crapola. Wilt and Russ put the Association on the map and Magic-Bird elevated it.

Pig Miller wrote:painful to see magic unexplicably running out the clock, worthy throwing away the ball, losing a couple of OT games in the finals

damn!!!

More painful to watch live and it still burns more since its occurence was Donnie Nelsons' "luckiest shot in the history of the finals" when the Russell led Keltix beat the Baylor-West-Wilt team in 1969 and the Ralph Sampson ansered prayer that propelled the Rockets over the Magic-Kareem-Coops-Worthy Showtime Lakers.

I was surprised that in the HBO special they didn't make mention of the Bostom Memorial Day Massacre when the Keltix crushed the Lakers and whupped them by over 30 points, a game not even as close as the final score.

pureuncut100 wrote:

LakerFan1235 wrote: Its funny if you think about it, of their handful of black contributors, Dennis Johnson had freckles and Robert Parrish was Indian.

What the eff? Do you realize that Boston was the first team to field an all Black starting line up and have the first Black head coach? This during the 1960s when Boston was known as one of the most racist cities in the country. Many Black people have freckles because of white slave owners raping their female slaves, it is not unusual for Blacks to have indegenous heritage because native Americans were not racists and runaway slaves became members of native society. Parrish was nicknamed "Chief", not because of his heritage but because he resembles the Chief, a chaarcter from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Chick22-44-33Consec wrote:

pureuncut100 wrote:

LakerFan1235 wrote: Its funny if you think about it, of their handful of black contributors, Dennis Johnson had freckles and Robert Parrish was Indian.

What the eff? Do you realize that Boston was the first team to field an all Black starting line up and have the first Black head coach? This during the 1960s when Boston was known as one of the most racist cities in the country. Many Black people have freckles because of white slave owners raping their female slaves, it is not unusual for Blacks to have indegenous heritage because native Americans were not racists and runaway slaves became members of native society. Parrish was nicknamed "Chief", not because of his heritage but because he resembles the Chief, a chaarcter from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Doesnt matter what the truth was. DOesnt really matter what I think or you for that matter. Perception is sometimes reality.

Masterpiece

That era of Johnson and Bird couldn’t have been better scripted or written. Their personalities were disparate on the outside yet similar on the side. One was a flashy, engaging urban kid while the other was shy, distrustful one. Also their respective teams were mirror opposites. The Movie Stars vs. The Longshoremen. Hollywood vs. Old Tradition. Showtime vs. Grind It Out. Central casting could not have done it better.

Yep, I lived through, saw firsthand that 1984 Finals debacle which I’ll never forget. Riley called the aftermath “The Summer of The Big Brood” which I’m sure he knows it wasn’t just with the team and the organization. It was a painful lesson in resiliency and fight that they carried with them through that following breakthrough season of 1985. As a Laker fan, for me that will NEVER be topped.

The documentary was well made, honestly presented, paced and not liberally sugar coated. I would love to see it hit DVD or even better Blu Ray. It DEFINITELY will have a place in my library.

I'd also like to point out the way it ended was very witty and well thought out, with each rival saying what they wish they could have had. It just seemed really deep in retrospect that throughout all the competitiveness, rivalry, hatred, and such, they wished they were more like the other.

I'm watching every day on HBO demand