Friends: the people who enrich our lives, encourage us during our toughest endeavors, and teach us how to love and to hate. The friendship between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird will go down in history as one of the greatest friendships in sports of all time. The two are both successful, retired ex-NBA players, Johnson hailing from the Los Angeles Lakers and Bird from the Boston Celtics. What makes this friendship so interesting is the fact that the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers have one of the greatest sports rivalries in the world.
During the 20th century, the rivalry between the Celtics and the Lakers was at an all time high, so Johnson and Bird’s friendship epitomized the magic of sports. In 1985, Converse asked both Johnson and Bird to tape a commercial together. They agreed, but Bird was nervous about having lunch with his rival. During lunch, though, Bird and Johnson discovered that they shared many similarities. Teammates of both men were shocked that they had lunch together, but Johnson and Bird both maintained a burning intensity to win championships and titles, and they forgot about the friendship until they retired.
Both came from blue-collar backgrounds and attended regular basketball programs. Johnson chose to play basketball at Michigan State University while Bird spent his time at Indiana State University, and they both re-energized their respective programs during their collegiate basketball careers. The two would meet in 1979 at the NCAA championship game, where Bird had an off game, and Johnson walked away as the winner.
More importantly, during the 1980s, when the NBA was heavily concerned with racial issues, these two men were racial signifiers. The Lakers were viewed as a black team since they had African-American stars such as Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and James Worthy leading the group. The Boston Celtics, on the other hand, were thought of as a predominantly white basketball team. The two friends would lead their teams to back-to back NBA titles, trading hardware year by year.
In 1991, Johnson received his diagnosis of HIV and reached out to Bird before scheduling a press conference. Johnson wanted to tell Bird before the media knew, a sign of how much he valued Bird as a friend. Bird described feeling anguished when he found out because “at the time, HIV was known to be a death sentence.” Fortunately, Johnson has maintained relatively good health throughout his life so far and has become an advocate for HIV and other human rights issues.
The two are famous for instilling life into the NBA, which had been formerly dull and starless. Bird and Johnson even played together on the 1992 Olympic basketball team, famously known as the “Dream Team.” In interviews today, both men recount the life-changing moment where Bird reached out to Johnson during the time of his diagnosis, telling Johnson that he supported him. The two’s friendship represents how race and socioeconomic status disappear when it comes to friendship. Friends support each other through difficult times, and that is what Larry Bird has done for Johnson all of these years.