I don't even know where to start with you
while discussing this film, 'Magic & Bird: A Courtship of
Rivals' as it drummed up a list of glorious memories when
Basketball was king, and sports were relevant. Today,
Basketball isn't king any more, and even the relevance of
sports can be called into question, but in the age of Magic
and Bird… those were the days. Sounding like the old man
that I am quickly becoming.
Director Ezra Edelman's HBO documentary from 2010 begins with
the NCAA finals in 1979. One of the things you might
notice was that this NCAA final between Michigan State and
Indiana State was some Madness actually played in March and
not late April. I was in sixth grade when that game was
played and it was every bit as big as the documentary made it
out to be, pitting the dynamic Michigan State point guard
Ervin 'Magic' Johnson against the stoic but deadly power
forward of Indiana State Larry Bird. Even though Indiana
State was undefeated, even as an eleven year old, as that game
went on, I could see that the Sycamores didn't have much of a
chance because the Spartans were just a better team. And
even though Larry Bird had a bad game, I knew he could play
because he torched Sidney Moncrief's Arkansas team in the
elite eight game a few nights earlier. Why I remember
this stuff so clearly, but couldn't remember an algebraic
formula to save my life, I can't tell you.
Then the doc tells us on what hard
times the NBA was in back in the late 70's, with all the games
being on taped delay. The odd thing is that I remember
this quite clearly, because I used to have to ask permission
to stay up to watch CBS late nite to watch the playoff games
with my older brother. I mean, I didn't know that was a
problem, just thought it was the way it was supposed to be.
Another thing I guess that was a problem was
the NBA, with its recent merger with the ABA, was too
Black. I remember some pretty good white players from
back then, like Kevin Greavy and Jack Sikma, plus living in
San Antonio at the time the Spurs had Billy Paultz and Mark
Olberding, just to name a few. I know they weren't Larry
Bird good, but whatever. If they tell me the league was
too Black back then, who am I to argue with them.
But all of that was about to change because the Lakers drafted
Magic and the Celtics drafted Bird and a league that was
moribund was about to take off. This documentary sits us
down in conversation with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Bird, in
addition to many others, and what the relationship of Magic
Johnson and Larry Bird meant to the game of basketball, and
more importantly what these two men meant to each other.
Coming out of college, Magic, obviously, is the gregarious
outgoing one, Larry Bird is the shy, reticent one and not a
lot has changed as the two guys approach the age of sixty with
Magic having little problem sharing his thoughts for the
camera, and Bird being a little more reserved. In fact,
getting Larry Bird to sit down and talk about things like 'his
feelings', especially in regards to extremely personal things
such as the suicide of his father had to be like pulling
teeth, Because Larry Bird is clearly not comfortable telling
you his business. In fact, I'm little curious how they
managed to convince Mr. Bird to sit down for these series of
interviews in the first place.
One of the main things the documentary confronted was the
issue of race, and it would be a difficult one to
ignore. The Celtics of the '80's probably had more white
players than any other NBA team, including arguably the single
best player in the league in Larry Bird, while the Lakers had
decidedly a lot more flavor. It seems so silly now, but
even I was caught up in that nonsense back then as a
teenager. One thing that was illuminating about this
documentary was that while all of this was going on, the one
person who could care the least about any of it, was the main
person at the center of it, that being Larry Bird. It's
funny because you hear people often say in regards to
controversial things like that, that 'it doesn't bother me',
but you kind of question them because it just HAS to bother
them on some level. But when Larry Bird says he didn't
care, mainly because it didn't have anything to do with
basketball, you actually believe that this guy just didn't
care.
Naturally the documentary traveled down the path of the end of
the careers of both legends, Larry Bird's fused back and Magic
Johnson's stunning HIV announcement, with Magic being
particularly poignant on how Bird showed his true friendship
towards him, while others did not, when he made that
announcement.
For anyone who was around during this time and enjoying
arguably the greatest era of professional basketball, 'Magic
vs. Bird: A Courtship of Rivals' is a great revisit, and
actually taught me some things that I didn't know, and I
thought I knew it all. For those new to this era, I
would imagine it to be high informational and educational on
two of the greats of the game. And no matter who you
are, even if you've never seen a basketball game in your life,
this documentary would entertain regardless.
