When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [36]
Magic was 19 years old. He didn't know anyone and was overwhelmed by the sprawling, glittery city and its daunting freeways. His new teammates were much older, and many of them were married with families. His first month in his new city he was completely alone.
Buss owned an apartment complex in Culver City and suggested the rookie move in there since it was near the practice facility, the airport, and the Forum. Johnson bought himself a new color television and spent his days watching Perry Mason and dialing home. He missed the chaos of his house in Lansing, which always seemed too small, too loud, and too cluttered but now seemed so inviting. On Sunday nights, he'd call and ask his sister Pearl to describe what his mother Christine was cooking. Then he'd hang up and order takeout—again.
One morning, Buss called to check on him.
"Do you like football?" the owner asked.
Three hours later, Magic was on the field at the USC game standing next to the coaches and the players. The Lakers' season hadn't started, and Magic had yet to play for LA, yet he was serenaded by the college football crowd with doting cheers of "Mag-ic, Mag-ic!"
"Dr. Buss!" Magic exclaimed. "They know who I am!"
Buss and Johnson, the two new guys on the Lakers' block, became constant companions. They both loved chocolate doughnuts, which they shared on Saturday mornings. They enjoyed shooting pool and competed in epic Ping-Pong battles. The owner liked to frequent exclusive nightclubs, and while Johnson was not a drinker, he went along anyhow, socializing with some of the wealthiest people in Los Angeles.
Buss took Magic to fellow real estate mogul Donald Sterling's famous annual Malibu party. Sterling, who would later purchase the-Los Angeles Clippers, owned a stunning waterfront home and served aqua-colored martinis and cocktails with miniature umbrellas floating on top. Magic was awed by the music, the food, and the women, but mostly he was mesmerized by the rolling surf.
"I was from Michigan," he explained. "I had never seen the ocean before."
When he got home from the party, he called Greg Kelser, his childhood friend Dale Beard, his girlfriend Cookie, and his mother. "You won't believe where I was tonight," he told each of them. "I was at the beach. Right on the water. With all the movers and the shakers!"
A week later, Buss took Magic to Friday night at the Playboy mansion. It was movie night, only Magic couldn't concentrate on the film because there were too many beautiful women to distract him. That prompted another series of phone calls back home to say, "Guess where I was?"—except this time he left his mom and Cookie off the call list.
Buss took his point guard to the exclusive Pip's in Beverly Hills to dance alongside the biggest Hollywood names. "There's Prince, there's Sylvester Stallone, there's Michael Douglas," Johnson would say, rattling off the parade of stars.
"It blew me away," Magic admitted. "And what blew me away even more was, they knew me."
Night after night, he and Buss toured the town. Buss brought lots of women with him on their excursions, and he'd dance disco, the waltz, and the tango with them for hours. When he got tired, he'd turn to Johnson and say, "Earvin, dance with these ladies."
Sometimes Buss and Magic would go to Vegas, where Buss would win (or lose) thousands of dollars in a half-hour. Whenever the Lakers' owner decided he had reached his limit, they'd go dancing again.
Although they spent countless hours together, they rarely talked about basketball. Buss wanted his prize investment to think beyond that.
"Earvin, take care of your money," Buss told him. "What do you want to do after basketball?"
The goal of the Lakers' flamboyant owner was to create a basketball team with Hollywood flair. Doris Day and Frank Sinatra were already regulars at the Forum, but Buss knew he'd made it when Sean Connery called him one evening and asked if there was room for agent 007 in his box.
"Once people saw Magic play," said Buss, "everyone wanted in."
Before Johnson's