Sep
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September 29, 1992 — A Magic Comeback Announcement
Nearly eleven months after he shocked the world with the announcement that he was HIV-positive and would retire from the game of basketball, Earvin “Magic” Johnson announced that he would make a comeback with the Los Angeles Lakers and to the league that he and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics saved in the eighties.
Following his shocking and awakening retirement in November 1991, Johnson was voted to the 1992 NBA All- Star Game and won the game’s MVP Honors. He would also play with the 1992 Dream Team, the greatest talent of basketball players ever assembled, in the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, winning a gold medal and thus giving him a championship in high school, college, the pros and the Olympics.
After playing in some preseason games prior to the start of the 1992-1993 NBA season, Johnson’s comeback attempt would officially end in November of that year when the “Magic Man” cited personal reasons at a time in which some players were still skeptical and worried about being on the court with him.
Johnson would go on to briefly coach the Lakers in the 1993-1994 season and then complete his comeback aspirations as a player during the 1995-1996 season. Johnson would fittingly play in the final 32 games of the season as a 6’9’’, 255-pound power forward. While Johnson broke through in the NBA during the 1980 NBA Finals when he replaced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center during the clinching Game Six of that series, it was certainly strange to see a heavy Johnson manning the post in 1996 rather than directing the show from the perimeter or backing down a smaller guard on the block.
Considering that he had been out of the league since a series loss to the Chicago Bulls in the 1991 NBA Finals, Johnson averaged a very respectable 14.6 points, 6.9 assists, and 5.7 rebounds per game in his return; numbers that fantasy players would greatly appreciate nowadays. In comparison, after missing the entire 1993-1994 and most of the 1994-1995 NBA season following his first retirement, Michael Jordan averaged 26.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 17 games. Both Johnson and Jordan would lose in the playoffs of their comeback seasons; Johnson to the defending champion Houston Rockets in the first round of the 1996 NBA playoffs and Jordan to the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Orlando Magic in the second round of the 1995 NBA Playoffs.
Like Jordan, Magic Johnson remains one of those players whose presence transcended the game of basketball. In addition to his economic developments and success in inner-city neighborhoods, Johnson’s announcement that he was HIV-positive in November of 1991 made it clear to society that AIDS was not just limited to certain types of people and that even a Magic Johnson could be subject to such a ravaging disease.
Just as Johnson was revolutionary on the basketball court, his announcement that he was HIV-positive was revolutionary in terms of raising AIDS awareness, advocating safe sex to teenagers and enacting at least some positive changes in how people with the disease were viewed.
Posted by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
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