Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were the best of friends, but when they laced up those sneakers, they might as well have been enemies of mythological proportions. Think Thor and Jormungandr, or more appropriately, Odysseus vs. Poseidon from the Greek tales. But unlike these mythical rivals, their journey began long before they became legends.
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Johnson and Bird were just two boys with a love for basketball. Their passion pushed them to become some of the best players the sport has ever seen. The rivalry was partly built as a marketing narrative that the media pushed, resulting in the pair becoming the next two faces of the sport and eventually leading to their first collision in the NCAA Tournament.
In 1979, Johnson and Michigan State faced off against Bird, who was representing Indiana State in the National Championship. The two stars had talked to each other in the past, but that wasn’t the case leading up to the game.
“At that time, he was going after something I wanted bad, and I was going after something he wanted bad,” Johnson said in an interview with David Letterman in 2012. “So we didn’t talk and we wanted to get it on.”
It was a battle for the ages. To this day, it is remembered as one of the greatest National Championship matches in NCAA history. Ultimately, Johnson poured a bit of his magic to capture Michigan State’s first national championship.
In 1978, the Celtics drafted Bird with the sixth overall pick. He would go on to have a career that the gods would be envious of, with 3 NBA championships, 3 consecutive MVP awards, and becoming a part of 12 All-Star selections. And yet somehow, the loss to Johnson in the NCAA tournament stung long after his professional career came to an end.
“That’s the toughest [loss] I’ve ever taken,” Bird revealed. “You had all your friends. Indiana State accepted me, brought me in, and it was tough. It’s still tough today.”
As fate would have it, Bird and Johnson would go on to become rivals in the NBA as well. Bird became a superstar on the Boston Celtics, and Johnson a superstar on the Los Angeles Lakers, resulting in a thrilling 7-game series in 1984, where Bird would have the opportunity to exact his revenge. The Boston Celtics would win, and Bird would be named the MVP.
They would go head-to-head in the NBA Finals a total of three times, with Johnson winning 2-1, leaving him with the final laugh.
