No Need for MJ Hyperbole, Magic

On the last weekend of June, a large white van pulled into the nation's capital and parked on 4th Street in a neighborhood in the city's tough Southeast quadrant. It was festooned with the words "Safe Easy Free" and a large photograph of Magic Johnson, smiling as always.

It was the Magic Johnson HIV Testing Van and it was making its last stop on what was a three-week long, 14-city tour through the South. By the time it stopped in Washington, D.C., its workers had provided more than 500 free HIV tests.

The work they were doing was the thrust of the Magic Johnson Foundation, which has awarded over $1 million to community based groups fighting the spread of HIV and AIDS since Magic Johnson revealed in 1991 that he was HIV positive.

That is how magnanimous Magic has become in retirement, as much if not more so than any other athlete. On Tuesday, he even went beyond the call of his conscience.

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"I truly believe," Magic told all of us watching the Michael Jackson Memorial as he stood on the Staples Center stage, "Michael made me a better point guard and basketball player."

That may have been a heartfelt sentiment, but Magic need not have gone so far.

There are a few among us -- Bill O'Reilly and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) come to mind -- who have found a whole lot more than praise to pour on Michael's nonpareil singing and dancing abilities in the wake of Michael's just-ended half century of life. I said his dancing and singing abilities.

There are a few among us who've overstated Michael's life and glossed over parts of it too, like the Rev. Al Sharpton who took the stage after Magic and pronounced Michael wasn't "strange." (As I tweeted on my Twitter account , I hope everyone who now embraces Michael's eccentricities has learned to extend the same understanding to others who look or seem different.) Magic went a step beyond what he needed to as well.

It has been stunning to learn in the last week just how big of an influence Michael Jackson is around the world and what an indelible mark he leaves on so many people in so many different places. He's been said to change everything from how we dance to the way we wear our clothes. He's even being credited for bringing together the races, and a crowd of all hues that turned out at his memorial appeared to be evidence.

But Magic sold himself short by going so far as to credit Michael for his basketball ability, which is as unparalleled as Michael's talent as an entertainer. In a lot of ways, Magic was as an athlete what Michael was as singer-dancer-composer.

After all, we'd never seen anything like Magic, either, when he exploded on the scene. He was a six-foot-nine basketball player who wasn't playing exclusively in the frontcourt. Instead, he was, first and foremost, a point guard, a position reserved until then for the shortest of players.

We never saw a player so young play with all the poise Magic did immediately after departing Michigan State with a national title as a sophomore. It was the same sort of thing Motown founder Barry Gordy and Motown star Smokey Robinson observed Tuesday of Michael when they first saw him as a 10-year-old. Magic was the first rookie to start in an NBA All-Star Game in over a decade. He was the first rookie, and remains the only rookie, ever to be named Finals MVP when he played center for an injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and led the Lakers to the title over the 76ers.

Michael made everyone who saw his moonwalk want to do it too. Magic made every basketball player who saw one of his no-look passes on a fast break want to thrill onlookers as distributors as much as finishers. "Nice look, man." You hear a passer thanked on the court all the time now. That's because of Magic.

Michael made himself the King of Pop. Magic made Showtime.

And as infectious as Michael's beats are everywhere, Magic's smile and personality are too. If there has been a better ambassador for the game of basketball, I am overlooking him.

Michael made himself the King of Pop. Magic made Showtime.Of the superstars who anchored the original, and really only, Dream Team at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Magic was the most-beloved. Michael Jordan was the most-spectacular, but Magic, despite playing very little due to a bum knee, was the most-beloved, as the mere announcement of his name seemed always to draw standing ovations.

One comparison that cannot be made between Michael and Magic is how they managed their lives. Michael turned inwards because, he and those closest to him said, he was so popular he couldn't live his life normally among the rest of us. Too many people just wanted to see him or touch him. It was beyond the life of most others pursued by the paparazzi.

Magic wasn't that transcendent; no one has ever been. Michael was a once-in-a-lifetime figure.

But Magic never recused himself from life despite being as great and popular an athlete as any in recent memory. Magic has always appeared to crave what Michael appeared to fear.

Magic started a company that owns and manages franchises that is now worth upwards of $700 million. He interacts with people on the motivational speaking circuit. He is engaged in Democratic politics, where last year he made a transition from Hillary Clinton's campaign to Barack Obama's just as smoothly as he once moved from the defensive end of the court to the offensive end.

Magic has remained as approachable and as gracious as ever, just as he was Tuesday at the basketball arena where he memorialized Michael, a basketball arena that appropriately is fronted by a statue in Magic's likeness.