MrAceFab he will probably see you from the other planet

Leo Rivera you probably right lol

J. Robertson m

@MANCHESTER UNITED F.C Football*

👍🏀🇺🇸

Jared Banks not only Laker.

+Jared Banks he was the greatest of all time.

There's no other player in NBA history I'd rather start a team with. His combination of size and skills , court instincts, IQ, and passing may never be seen again. The greatest NBA leader ever!

Jared Banks Don't you love how joyously and unselfishly he played. There's no laker who didn't revel in being his teammate and was better than he would've been on any other team .

Not to mention, he could easily put up 30 points when they needed him to.

Bird

If magic were as a good of a scorer as bird, he would have been the GOAT.

He was close to it. Think about it. No one even considers Magic as a scorer, yet he averaged 20 per game career. He was a pass first and pass second point while doing that. Highest average of his was 23.9 in 1987 while he averaged 12.5 assists, which is a ton and not all of his passes converted in an assist either. If he were to have lowered his passing a bit, I think he would've hovered around 24-25 a game. He had a great post game, better than most forwards had and he became a good shooter by his 5th year. His handle allowed him to cut thru defenses and get lots of point blank layups and such. He had a well-rounded offensive game, it just came in bits and pieces so it wasn't as noticeable by the end of the game.

Bharles Carkley I say that if he can do a no look pass from almost the three-point line directly into the hands of Kareem, so Kareem has the easy jam, that is just as good if not better than sinking a 20 foot jumpshot in my opinion.

I really do wish that Bird and Magic could have played more than just a handful of games on the same team. Those 2 were poetry in motion... just beautiful games.

dionysis e: if they call you magic, they call you that for a reason :)

This is great not passing to a guy open on the perimeter for 3 then say what a spectacular pass

Kareem too

@@brandoncazares8452 Kareem had the indefensible sky hook. All you could do was foul him. His sky hook had high percentages.

HiPlains1 Yes I know

Totally agree

By light years

Of all time. It's not even close

💯!!

Yeap

You know your shit putting Barry and Magic together. Both changed the game forever

+Kawhi MJ Leonard Classic!!! Thought I was the only one to notice that

Lol...love it!

Chick was sharp

On the world champion Laker basketball network

I miss ypu

Absolutely. I'll take a Magic fast break no look pass over a Jordan dunk every time!

@@MrAitraining I concur

Mine too 🏀

So true I love Magic Johnson. He's my favorite player

There ya go. Something these young Carmelo Anthony fans need to learn. Magic and Bird could have lit it up any night they wanted. They saw the bigger picture. Make EVERYONE better and you WIN

Ball Is Life magic is Ridiculous!!🔥🔥🔥

Ball Is Life some people be saying lonzos way better at passing, but they probably didn’t see this vid

John Stockton's peak averages are higher w/ less turnovers per game. His career apg only went down due to playing less minutes at an older age. Magic never led the league in assists again after Stockton became a starter.

jp3813 it's not JUST about stats fam...

+ King Oz Nobody said it was, but it's a huge part of it. Especially when someone claims that no one is close.

Him and Lebron are easily the two most deadly transition players ever.

@@geordiejones5618 lol Bron is not a great transition passer. far from it. he is a great finisher however.

Greatest point guard ever

@@jaxonturnbull7333 greatest pg ever I have to agree

Your mom used to run a fast break in da hood...the throat yogurt she guzzled was unparalleled.

Dr. J Magic is the only player that can dominate a game and only score 2 points. Lol

There's John Stockton and Steph Curry too

Steph Curry is damn near close

@@realityutubetv8846 Magic was finals MVP his rookie year. As a rookie. Curry has yet to earn 1 Finals MVP. Its not close.

@@straightlead8 Y'all are really big on curry getting that finals mvp. That really doesn't determine his greatness, I never said Curry was the greatest point guard I said he's close , which means he needs to accomulate more awards. Doesn't matter because Curry is the greatest pg of this era anyways.

@KZfaq Your chronic is strong!

+William Cooper yea no kidding, sadly we may not ever see a player that can pass like this, just remarkable what Magic could do.

^^^ this. I'm not taking away from Magic's undoubtably greatest passing game ever, but its not like LeBron isn't also a gifted passer as well. I don't understand how NBA fans still fail to realize the game evolves every year, and the players get bigger and stronger and it gets tougher. MJ the GOAT, but MJ wouldn't be the same MJ today

+daveysweigard sigh...

+daveysweigard keep smoking. the game have gone backwards since about 1991

I have this gift. I am going to get my dues

Mine too. Magic Johnson is the GOAT

kamran movassaghi Another thing, he was one of those 80s guys who actually proved year by year that they worked all Summer long on adding components to their game. By 91, Earv was coming down and popping a 3 in semi-break, which is unheard of from him, but it's true. He added sharp spin moves. His handle was great, very underrated because he didn't do between the leg shit lest he needed to and no X-overs. His handles were great in a functional way, meaning he did nothing that was unnecessary. Another thing, he could and DID get by players on the perimeter into the paint for point blank layups constantly, so there had to be something he did right with his footwork and all that shit that fans tend to point to today. Great post game as well, criminally underrated for his offense. A 20 ppg career guy as a pass-first and pass-second 1. Younger fans can't obviously understand that Earv and Bird weren't so much about the highlights even though I made this flim, but it was about their leadership skills and their "come thru" skills in big moments. Both clutch, both NOT afraid to have the ball in any dire situation. It's bizarre, but they were the closest overall approximates to each other, imo. Maybe Rick Barry to Bird. Mully was a poor man's Bird. I thought Kidd was the only point ever that was similar to Earvin besides the height diff. Moreso than Penny imo. Anyway.

nonplayerzealot4 To see Magic Johnson grab a rebound and run the fast break is a thing of absolute beauty...awesome compilation...shows the greatness that most people outside of Laker fans from the 80's can not see. The Maestro of Basketball, to me, no one is even close. Only Larry Bird comes close along with Gretzky in hockey.

nonplayerzealot4 Although reminds me of how great of an announcer we had in Chicky Baby, truly miss his voice, his call, his wit...we are in a very deep valley when John Ireland is calling Laker games!

Amen

+kamran movassaghi that being said, never once did Magic question the 80's Lakers being Kareem's "team". most of the egomaniacs today wouldnt be able to do that.

Good old days

Ruben Benites you see all these dunks and people are scared to foul them... if they play by the rules in the 80's today...blake griffin, deandre Jordan, Christina bosh, d howard, and more...their careers would be over now...the good old days...when they can get into fist fights and stay in the game...unless they get their second technical foul...you look at the ref sideways you get ejected...todays game is a fucken joke...I'm glad I grew up in the 80's to see the magic vs. bird rivalry coming from college to the NBA...we'll never see anything like that in our lifetime again...they save the NBA...the closest thing to it is pete carrol and jim harbaugh...

Me too.

Karen Thomas Larry Bird even cheered for him, which was in itself nothing short of amazing.

shit had a vibe...was intense...like the dodgers heyday in the 80s, and like dallas vs frisco nfl back in the 90s. glad i had a chance to soak it all up. there was no doubt that it was all special to witness, and so glad that i lived it. and now...? bleh :(

Magic owned the basket world....not just L.A.....the NBA world loved Magic!!

Good post. Unfortunately, a lot of those fans are so defensive about the nuNBA and how disgusting it is to a lot of older fans that they, in turn, shit on past decades as if today's player is a different species of human from a different time warp than the 90s players. Even the 2Ks don't qualify as nu/advancedNBA to them. They hail the 3 point tennis matches and the soft soccer flopping and stupid game stoppages as the superior NBA. They don't know what they don't know.

@@nonplayerzealot4 I think another issue for sports in general is there's TOO much coverage. People may have become sportsed-out. Do we really need some type of sporting event on television every day or night. Sports used to be special events, anticipated maybe for a whole week, piquing fan interest. It's tough to get excited these days when there's some sports event or other on TV 7days a week. Having been born and raised in Los Angeles and watched Magic's entire career with Lakers, he is the only easy pick (imo) for an all time NBA starting five. The other four could be argued endlessly. That alone tells me what he actually was: the most UNIQUE player in NBA history. Let others argue about this GOAT or that one.

@@gregrambo606 I got a theory that Earvin, Chuck and Shaq are the 3 biggest outliers ever for what they did at their size. Shaq is just a unique human being and I know there have been other behemoths at C like Yao, but Shaq is one of the FEW who did 15+ years and half of his major injuries were accidents caused by others and not resulting from congenital probs. He fully ravaged his knee in 97 and came back from it w/o any other probs with it. Thumb lig tear was on a HaS by Matt Geiger in 96, knee landing on an opp's foot in 97 -- those two caused by others. Then the ab strain in 98 and the final one when he was ancient w/ BOS. That's FAR from a Bynum or Oden type of injury history. Or poor Sam Bowie. Magic and Chuck were just weird polar opps based on height. Neither should've done what they did. And I don't count Penny as a guy who was comparable to Earv. Penny's injury history alone precludes that in my op. Earv at 6'9" controlled offenses, handled the ball 75% of the game w/ strong handles that are absolutely unappreciated by younger fans because he didn't do Xovers. And the passing was otherworldly. Chuck at his height was a beast down low, comparable #s to Malone. Chuck had a crazy vert even when he was fat. He blocked more dunks and layups at the rim than anyone. More than many centers even. I've seen him chase down Spud and small Gary Grant from halfcourt to spike what they thought was gonna be a layup rite at rim level.

@@nonplayerzealot4 Your point about Barkley is good. Too bad he didn't come a year earlier when Philly finally won the title after getting Moses Malone. I've never tried to argue "GOATS" (which people seem to be obsessed with), however, my only point about Magic vs. Jordan IN THE FINALS is this: Every team the Lakers beat in the finals in the 80's CAME BACK TO WIN THE NBA CHAMIONSHIP THEMSELVES AFTER HAVING BEEN BEATEN BY THE LAKERS. (Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit).There's no comparison regarding the strength of competition Magic's Lakers had to play in the finals vs. Jordan's Bulls; not even close. The time Jordan beat the Lakers in the finals (Magic's last year, the start of the Jordan run), Kareem had retired the year before and they had Vlade Divac at center. We're not not talking about the Magic that came back at 36 or 37 when the Lakers were not very good to help them sell some tickets. By the way, thanks for not putting annoying music on your video. It makes a big difference.

👍🏀

elsacapuntaz That's crazy that you say that. Yesterday, me and some friends were playing basketball. One of my friends friends was REALLY good at passing. After playing against him, I noticed how good of a passer he actually was. I asked him after the 4th or 5th game, "Yo dude, how are you so good at passing?" he said, "I feel them close to me..." I kinda laughed and walked away to get some water. I thought about it a bit more and the perceptual awareness he had was at a pretty high level. Something like this is definitely possible (as we can see), but makes it more believable if you see it with your own eyes. I wish I recorded it, some of the passes he was making was just impossible. I mean, he was doing behind the back passes, no-looks, left handed bounce passes, touch passes, etc. It was so hard to believe that his passes were off a "feel" so to speak, but his consistency in setting up his teammates said it all.

blue boy id say its sort of like memory of game moments. lots of moments tend to repeat in basketball

Its called great prerifile vision...he has eyes in his ears as the one announcer said...

Well he did have Aids to help him.

blueboyV he was unconscious when he played.

He's certainly the greatest court general ever

I wish it was 60fps, hi def!!!

Not only that, I had to rewatch at 1/2 speed

I was rewinding during the whole freakin video! Lol

Yup had to back that thing up a couple times =)

This is my 3rd time watching it and it still takes me at least 30 to 35 minutes to complete the video because o keep rewinding it. I've been watching it for 7 minutes now and haven't made it PASS 1:30

John Smith That's Chicky baby. The greatest basketball play by play announcer ever.

Chick Hearn !!!!

MJ was better all around?? Magic was a better rebounder and passer (obviously).

ohioscott --- Earv was without a doubt the best "special game" player. All Star games, charity games, etc. The guy could perform on the drop of a dime. He won the 92 ASG MVP with those 3s at the end. He could do that stuff whenever he wanted. I have a couple charity gms with his old player team from 1995. He could've still been playing as a pro if not for the HIV. Against an Aussie team, he hit a 3 at the buzzer to tie the game. It was one of his heave shots. He found a tiny gap to get it off. The other was a gm in Turkey. He had the crowd going with his antics. The crowd was satisfied with all his passes already and at the final buzzer, he calmly dribbles to midcourt and throws up a shot that's all net. Right on cue. The crowd went nuts on that. Unfortunately the video looks like it was shot in Borat land. I still might put it up someday.

espdemon my dude don't get it twisted Magic could score at will

espdemon defense is half the game 👍🏽

Jordan was a great scorer. Magic could kill you with assists or rebounding and score anytime he wanted to. Like Bird, Magic could take 14 shots and dominate a game. Magic/Bird the goats!!

1. Michael Jordan 2. MAGIC JOHNSON 3. Lebron James

White Wolf where's Larry legend in your list?

kone before lebron

White Wolf good list, Lebron should be lower

As a kid, I played ball. First play I ever saw of Magic Man.. I've immolated my game after him ever since.

looking at this video made me think the complete opposite you have to play both ends of the floor

+brice magny Magic was not the D player Kobe was - though he would be imo if he guarded forwards, but that aside, Magic did what team needed. He could have scored 40 a night np if all he cared about was stats. He made average players good/great, like Bird, Jordan and others. Shit, I could have run the lane and gotten some layups from Magic :)

The lakers were average before he was drafted they were championship contenders his entire career and became average when he retired.

featherynick Thanks, bro. I refused to use any footage that didn't come from an actual game from my collection. There were a few of his highlights that I wish I had the game to, and some were available on NBA produced tapes, but the audio didn't fit. I also had to let go of guess how many other great passes he threw that didn't result in a bucket. Some of those were better than the ones that made the final cut. Not only that, but I made this video 4 years ago and I have since found at least a few more games with Magic assists that I would've used in 2011. I have a shipload of games, I have about 4 full 100 disc spools of old Chick gms from various eras. Currently, I've been remastering them, audio and video. Takes a long time to get just one right, but it's worth it. --PS: I've gotten many quotes about how many long shots Magic hit. Bear in mind I only had no more than 33% of his games when I made this. All those clips happened to come from that lot. There are 2 more halfcourters I know of that I didn't have and one from a game he played in Turkey where he hit one at the final buzzer, but the video was shit. There's no doubt whatsoever that he hit more of those shots than any other player. Only reason I can think of is that he happened to have a quarterback's arm coupled with great offensive touch in general.

+featherynick Additional props for using the words eschew and derpstep in the same sentence. ;-) You don't often see that kind of word wizardry.

nonplayerzealot4 NPZ, you are the fucking king.

This video is pure brilliance, thank you for producing this work of art. You made the world a better place with this unbelievable collection of highlights and your Magic knowledge is unreal, good for you sir.

nonplayerzealot4 I salute you sir, great job.

There will never be another 6'9" point guard period. Wilt/Kareem/Magic, everyone else is secondary.

gerizzyYMcrew No, Magic is up there with Wilt and Kareem. Everyone else takes a back seat.

gerizzyYMcrew Wilt's stats are inflated, yes, but how exactly is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar overrated? He ran the floor as well as any big man ever, could score on anybody well into his late 30s, rebounded as a big man should (before he got old), and was an above-average passer from the post (3.6 ast per game). Notice I didn't even mention the sky hook, and the fact that he'd be the all time leader in blocked shots by a couple hundred if they tallied that stat in his first four seasons. This is against great bigs from two different decades. You know nothing about basketball.

Daniel Kelegian Oh, and how is it possible for the guy who has scored more points than anyone ever to not have his place near the top?

Bill. Dont forget about the man who changed the whole game. Bill Russell.

Mike McBride I still remember Chick and Stu on channel nine in LA Ca

that's what a point guard is supposed to do

+Budkreiser 55 LOL

+Budkreiser 55 now we got everyone trying to be like curry instead of magic

+DAMamaSexual we still got rondo, john wall and cp3. All excellent passers but i think rondo is the best of the three.

Chris orapma Nah cp3 is

Thx, homes. Took 2 yrs, 70 plus games. I lost 75 percent of the project midway thru it, had to re-start from scratch.

No hate here. I love great jazzy passing over anything else in hoops. Magic was a joy to watch.

It's Showtime man.

Not slightly bro. He was so watchable that network television (I believe it was CBS in the 80's) had to get a piece of the the spectacular scene and contract to show all the finals live ( they were taped delayed and not even shown nationally until Johnson showed up) because there was a real good chance Magic (and to a lesser extent) Bird would be there. That wouldn't have happened if it were Jordan at that time as there were no Jordan rules so Jordan would get his ass kicked physically at that time. Johnson also started the shoes sale craze with Bird that others have built their over rated careers on. Also player contracts started to really escalate with all the financial success that Johnson brought to the NBA. Johnson is the GOAT of the world of basketball no question! He is the NBA giant on who's shoulders everyone else sit on.

@@terrydavis2936 You're right about the shoe craze. Heck, at that time I only wore Converse high tops because of Magic!!! He was the king of L.A in the 80s.

No idea his hook shot was that good!!!! And he shot it right and left handed!!

Thx, dude. I thought of the other oldheads when I made this.

Damn

***** He's just amazing he knew when to pass it literally. He made perfect bounce passes,on the run,lob,laterals,swings etc,he just reads the defense so well

Wow where did you hear that? They say Lebron is a hybrid of Micheal and Magic. Yes you are right he will never be a greater assist man than Magic. But he certainly has personal traits. Lebron is Lebron at the end of the day as I see it.

that's not my point. My point is he doesn't set the pace of the game and get his team into its sets...if you watch any film on lebron the half court at times is very stagnant and the ball doesn't move.

I agree, but you should even look at what he averaged when Kareem was injured. He could go from averaging 19.5, all the way to blasting 35-40 points in games that Kareem was injured, then readjusting back to scoring 19. That's insane.

Alec Buckley I'm the vid maker. Yer right, Alec. In 87, he scored 39 and 46 in two straight after Riley told him to, it's on the 87 title video. The part of his game that is almost completely forgotten is his offense. 20 a game CAREER while trying to pass all game long is like Cigarettes said, "a lot". There are some guys considered scorers who wound up their careers around the 20 ppg mark give or take. When the finish of Mark Aguirre's career had finally averaged out the beginning of it, he retired at 20.0 right on the nose and he was one of the most selfish scorers in the league. Earv had a smooth offensive game. He was hitting treys by the end of his career and, a lot of fans have no clue of this, but HE was actually one of the first guys who was shooting them on the break by 1990. That was just starting to become a thing most largely due to Vern Maxwell and Kenny Smith. Magic's post game was and still IS more complete than that of numerous natural 3s and 4s. His spin moves and dropsteps were almost as good as Worthy's -- there's not even the slightest hint of bullshit in that claim, Magic just wasn't given nearly the same credit for it. He was also the only guy beside Kareem who could hit traditional hook shots of any kind (not jumphooks a la Kevin Willis or Hakeem, but real hooks).

nonplayerzealot4 well said!