Magic vs. Bird, basketball isn’t the same today. Who knows why? Maybe today’s player don’t care as much. Maybe they play the game for different reasons. Maybe it takes a lot more that 25 years to make another rivalry with as much passion and personality as the one for which Magic and Bird were responsible.
The memory I have of the 1985 finals makes me feel like one of the old guys. It makes me feel like Billy Crystal saying how baseball was “just different” when Mickey Mantle used to roam center field in Yankee Stadium. Basketball was just different when Magic brought the ball up court. I was glued to his every move. I loved how he called out the plays and tutored his teammates during timeouts. His adversary Larry Bird was a living example of how a player could make the absolute most of his talent.
Now we are forced to watch people like Kevin Garnett. When Garnett holds the ball on offense there is a 80% chance he’s going to try to go 1-on-1 with his man. If he doesn’t score, about 60% of the time, he sulks or throws as many F-bombs as the refs can take. We have to watch Kobe, who doesn’t smile for the entire months of May and June. We’re supposed to respect that because he is, “so intense” because he “wants to win so bad”. Magic was intense, he beat the best (Bird) and he did it with a smile on his face. Best of all he had fun and people, like me, had fun watching.