Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr.is an American retired professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Associationfor 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth14 August 1959
CityLansing, MI
CountryUnited States of America
When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.
I was around when my father finished the last payment of his house. I remember like it was yesterday. He had worked all those years to own that house and he cried. He was so excited and so happy and I want to see other people get that feeling, too.
I'm a big believer in dreaming. If you don't dream it, you can't become it.
Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am.
If you're a competitive person, that stays with you. You don't stop. You always look over your shoulder.
My father was a great example of a strong and good man and Christian man, and my mother taught all my six sisters how to be young ladies and mothers and how to take care of your family. And so I think they were - they still are - great examples for all of us to their kids and to the world, too.
For me, it always goes back to something I learned in basketball. There's winning and there's losing, and in life you have to know they both will happen. But what's never been acceptable to me is quitting.
I am a businessman. This is what I do each and every day. I love it. I love coming to work. I never have a bad day.
And the road games would have been worse.
Probably impossible, almost, for the Lakers to make it with the road schedule they have.
Believe it or not, I was once just like you, ... I was sitting in a school just like this. I had dreams and goals just like you and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be Magic Johnson.
The success we had back then or now doesn't mean we'll have that success five years from now, ... We don't have any competition. That's the main thing.
You always run a risk, but I think the positive outweighs the risks, ... Life itself is a risk. But I'm not worried about that. If I was concerned about that, I wouldn't be up here.
I thought it was going to be a team in January or February anyway because of all the new guys trying to learn the triangle. They're probably still on that timetable.