When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [102]
"Hey, I can't tape you, you've been traded," Anderson said.
"C'mon, no joking around today," Thompson said. "I want to do some extra shooting."
"Are you listening to me? You are no longer a Spur," Anderson persisted. "You've been traded to the Lakers."
Thompson looked at him for a moment, then at Valentine. Neither was laughing. He leaped up and hugged them both.
"I felt like I won the lottery," Thompson said.
Two days later, he was in the Lakers locker room preparing for a nationally televised afternoon game against the Celtics. As he dressed with Kareem to his left and Magic to his right, he leaned over to forward A. C. Green and cracked, "I feel like I'm with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards."
Green responded with a polite but restrained smile. Thompson noted that there was no idle chatter, no horsing around. The locker room was quiet, businesslike.
"You couldn't cut the tension with a chain saw," Thompson said.
The jovial big man, who had hammed it up with Magic many times before, was surprised to see that even Johnson was grim-faced. Thompson asked Byron Scott, "So why is everyone so serious around here?"
"Because we hate the Celtics," Scott replied.
Thompson's first taste of Boston-LA was every bit as electrifying as he had imagined. The Lakers won 106–103, and his initiation into the trench war included a stiff arm to his Adam's apple from Parish and a humiliating series of post-up acrobatics from his old friend McHale on the block. Yet Thompson acquitted himself well overall, and Johnson was optimistic they'd found a neutralizing weapon underneath.
It was one of the many new moves the Lakers made in 1986–87. Just as Bird felt cheated in '83 when his team didn't make it to the Finals, Magic was still rankled by his team's underwhelming '86 postseason performance. A month into a long summer of frustrated retrospection, Riley invited him to lunch.
"We've got to change things, Earvin," Riley said. "This has to be your team now."
Magic was mildly confused. He felt as though it had been his team for the last four or five years.
"You can't just be the guy that sets everyone else up anymore. I need you to score," Riley clarified.
"Have you talked to Kareem about this?" Magic asked.
"I talked to Kareem already," Riley answered. "He understands. Now you have to understand. When you come back, you have to have a different mindset."
Magic, who honestly believed he could put up the same numbers as Larry Bird, had spent years deferring to Abdul-Jabbar on the offensive end. Through the first seven seasons of his career, he averaged 12 shots a game. Now Riley was talking about him taking 15 to 20 a night. It would require more pick-and-rolls as well as setting Johnson up in the post so he could exploit the smaller guards.
Johnson went back to Lansing and asked his college coach, Heathcote, to walk him through the nuances of the post-up game. For hours, Heathcote fed his former Michigan State star passes on the block, monitoring his footwork on the drop step and the angle of his shoulder when he turned to take the hook.
Magic's summer league workout partners showed up expecting the usual no-look lobs above the rim, the half-court bounce passes up the middle, and the drive-and-kick feeds to the perimeter. Instead, Magic was driving and finishing. He was posting up forwards, guards, anyone he could pin down on the block. He was pulling up for jump shots on the break instead of dishing off to the trailer. When he arrived at training camp, he lingered after practice, studying Abdul-Jabbar's sweeping hook.
"What makes it work?" Magic asked. "Is it the position of the ball? The release? The footwork?"
Kareem demonstrated the proper way to turn the body, how to keep the sweeping motion far enough from the opponent so it could not be blocked. He replicated the flick of the wrist, which enabled the ball to arc properly.
Magic was genuinely concerned about how Abdul-Jabbar would handle the subtle change in the team's pecking