When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [126]
"I feel sorry for you," Magic told Jordan. "You will never have what Larry and I had. We went two weeks without sleep knowing, if we made one mistake, the other guy was going to take it and use it to beat us. Who do you measure yourself against?"
The conversation lurched on with no resolution until the topic switched to the inevitable follow-up: who was the best 1-on-1 player of all time?
"Gentlemen," said Jordan, "give it up. You've got no chance on this one. Larry, you don't have the speed to stay with me. Magic, I can guard you, but you could never guard me. Neither one of you guys can play defense the way I can. And neither one of you can score like me."
"I don't know about that," Magic retorted. "I could have scored more if I wanted to. It would have been a good one."
Jordan's face darkened. He had been uncommonly conciliatory in Barcelona, stepping aside as Bird and Magic shared the title of captain and revered elder statesman. Jordan deferred to Magic, allowed him to become the face of the Dream Team, even though Jordan was the reigning back-to-back league MVP. He did so because he understood that Magic's career was at an end and this was his final basketball indulgence.
"I didn't want to burst his bubble," Jordan said.
But now Jordan expected Magic to acknowledge the obvious: that Michael Jordan was the best player in the world. He turned to Magic, plucked the cigar out of his mouth, and approached his fellow future Hall of Famer with his voice rising.
"You better give it up," Jordan told Magic. "I'll come into your gym and drop 60 on you. I've already done it to the Celtics. Ask your friend Larry. You and Bird were great players. You did some amazing things. But it's over. This is my game now."
"Michael, don't you forget," Magic said. "Larry and I turned this league around. We are the NBA."
"Well, I've taken it to a new level," Jordan replied. "And it's not your league anymore."
"You're not there yet," Magic insisted.
Bird watched silently as the debate between Magic and Michael escalated. He detected a swagger in Jordan that he hadn't seen before. Bird recognized that strain of confidence, bordering on arrogance. It was exactly how he had felt when he was on top of the basketball world.
"There were plenty of years when I knew in my heart I was the best guy in the room," Bird said. "That night I knew in my heart it wasn't me anymore. And it wasn't Magic either."
Rashad, a friend to both Michael and Magic, tried to soften the increasingly heated rhetoric. He was unsuccessful. Jordan wanted concessions from Johnson that Magic stubbornly refused to provide, and His Airness remained relentless in pursuing them.
"I just think it's too bad we couldn't all have been young together," Magic said. "We could have all been the face of the NBA at the same time."
"Your time has passed," Jordan said. "C'mon, old man, give it up."
"I'm not sure about that," Magic persisted.
"Magic," Bird finally interjected, "stop. We had our moment. There was a period when nobody was better than you and me. But not anymore. Michael is the best now.
"Let's pass the torch and be on our way."
Magic Johnson wouldn't stop pestering Larry Bird. Magic desperately wanted to play in the 1992 Olympic Games with him, but Bird's back was so badly damaged that he could barely run up and down the court for the Boston Celtics.
"I was in so much pain, I didn't even want to play basketball anymore," Bird said.
Although he had not told anyone except his wife and Dan Dyrek, Bird had already determined that the 1991–92 season would be his last. It had become a daily chore for him to lace up his sneakers without doubling over. He was 35 years old, and he was done.
But Magic wasn't taking no for an answer.
"Larry, we've got to do this," Magic implored him. "I've been waiting my whole career to play with you one more time."
Dave Gavitt, the CEO of the Celtics and president of USA Basketball, also wanted Bird in the fold. Four years earlier, in Seoul, South Korea, the U.S. team, made up completely of college players, suffered a stunning