Bird is a man of few words, and those words tend to be salty, memorable and biting; Johnson is gregarious, chatty and compulsively upbeat. Different as they are, they were each outstanding players early on who received the same advice from high school coaches: never get complacent because there is always someone out there who is just as good or better as you are. Super-confident, neither one of them believed what the coaches told them.
In April 1978, the NCAA College All Stars played a World International Tournament against a Russian team. Bird and Johnson, who were All Stars but didn't get much playing time, were on the court a short time (one estimate was three seconds) but their play together electrified everyone. That moment marked their arrival on each other's radar: they had met the player their high school coaches warned them about.
They were on opposing sides in spring 1979 when Magic Johnson and Michigan State beat Larry Bird and Indiana State for the NCAA championship. Even though his team won the title, Johnson at the time remembered, "The problem with Larry was he could score from anywhere. It was the first time in my life I was scared of another player." Bird would have to wait until 1984 to be able to say, "I finally got Magic," when the Celtics won the NBA title over the Lakers. Their contest would continue until they retired from the game.
Of the slew of stories in this highly entertaining book, one of my personal favorites is the moment when Magic (who had gone public with his diagnosis of HIV infection in November 1991) lobbies Bird (who was having serious back problems) to agree to play on the United States Dream Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Harking back to the first time they passed the ball in 1978, Magic says, " I've been waiting my whole career to play with you one more time." Larry had to say yes, and what a show that was from these phenomenal athletes. As former Celtics player Kevin McHale comments, "Larry and Magic are still the only two guys I know who could take ten or eleven shots and still dominate the game."--John McFarland
Shelf Talker: A thrill-packed, lively and moving dual memoir of the years when Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers competed with Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics for basketball dominance and the awe of fans everywhere.