Larry Bird on playing his first game after Magic Johnson announced his HIV diagnosis and retirement: “I didn’t want to be there that night. First time ever.” For the rest of the season, “I didn’t check the papers anymore. It didn’t matter. I still wanted to compete, but it wasn’t the same.”

14 comments

  2. Bird-Magic rivalry has been the best player rivalry in NBA history. So much that they are still discussed together a lot, after all these years.

  4. Crazy the amount of respect and love those 2 had for each other being bitter rivals on the Lakers & Celtics. It’s awesome! Respect to 2 legends.

  6. Seeing Reggie Lewis breaks my fucking heart. What could’ve been. Shit.

  7. if larry bird was healthy til he was 40 he would be the undisputed goat

  8. just about as perfect a rivalry as you can envision especially for the nba and especially for its time. nothing like it since

  9. Bird was always a real one. 

    btw Magic is yet another reason that Karl Malone is a fucking scumbag:

    >”If you got the AIDS virus, it would be hard for me to play as hard as I’m playing,” Malone once said regarding Johnson. “And if people can’t respect my decision… that’s tough.”

  10. Interesting to think at the time he must have thought Magic didn’t have long left on this earth.
    If only we could show him Magic playing basketball on his Yacht in 2025

  11. People today won’t appreciate the fact that when Magic was diagnosed as HIV+, we all thought at the time it was quite literally a death sentence. People with HIV at the time lived about 10 more years. That was why he had to retire immediately. He couldn’t risk putting his body under any more stress or risk further infections.

    The science progressed really rapidly in a very short period of time. But the day Magic announced he was HIV+, everyone thought he was going to die in a matter of years.

    It was a sad, sad day.

    I’m a diehard Celtics fan and fuck the Lakers, but I thought the guy who told me that Magic was HIV+ was making some kind of sick joke and actually wanted to fight him.

  12. Don’t think we’ll ever see something this special in sports again, definition on competitiveness and sportsmanship

  14. Who would have thought back then that magic would still be alive and healthy 34 years later?

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