Transcription
I'm in peace, so now this will be part two in regards to the Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas relationship rejuvenation, revival. And I'm happy for the brothers. Now, we left off, we were talking about the All-Star Game and Magic Johnson's assertion that he and Isiah Thomas were the ones who really pushed the NBA All-Star Game into prominence. And it's correct, because really, the modern era of the NBA started in 1979 with the drafting of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Even though Larry was actually drafted the year before, of course, in rookie season was '79, and they're the ones who really pushed the NBA into the modern era. You had Bird and Magic who were drafted in rookie seasons were '79, and then I believe Kevin McHale came in the next season, and then Isiah Thomas came in in '81 and '82. You had James Worthy and Dominique Wilkins, and then of course '84, you had Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, so on and so forth. '85, you caught Malone and Patrick Ewing. So that's pretty much how the, how the NBA was able to revive itself. And also, I believe now that I'm not that I remember, I believe that Clyde Drexler came in in '83, and also in '84 was too great a team Olajuwon. Let me not forget him. So those were the players that really created the modern NBA as we know it, because in 1979, that's when you started to have the NBA be more visible. So that relates to Magic Johnson's assertion that he and Isiah Thomas were heavily responsible for promoting the NBA through the All-Star Game. And I think that those style of play that many of the modern-day players used in the All-Star Game, it's kind of a disregarding of the game. They kind of take for granted how important that game is as a showcase. But it's also symptomatic of the soft mindset of the modern-day NBA. Everybody just wants to take a 30-foot jump shot, and that's not good for that game. But it was just special, man. The way we always pull for each other. Yeah, did not always pull for each other unless you're talking about you and Isiah. You just won, you know, the championship, use the MVP, you know, and you, you grab Mark. And now Mark McGwire, who should be in the Hall of Fame. If Tracy McGrady's in the Hall of Fame, Mark, Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame. All right, for people who doubt that, please look at Mark McGwire's stats from 1981 up until about 1988. Look up his stats. Wagon. But you know, looking back, you know, 25, 30 years, but looking back, the throne that you was owned in the pathway and the doorway that you own. This is a very nice photo right here. For those of you brothers who remember, I did a video called "Ben Franklin Versus the Versus the Black Germans," and we delved into the meaning of certain words like swarthy and tawny. And I, we were able to to decipher and discern the meaning. And I'm when you look at Magic Johnson's complexion, as well as Isiah Thomas, you see that they have kind of a golden brown complexion. That is what was known as "fulvus" in ancient Rome, also known as dusky. When you hear that term dusky, the "usk," why that's in reference to the so-called black man. But we'll be delving into that in some of the other videos. I just wanted to bring that out when you look at this photo here that you opened from all of us, right? You didn't, you didn't have to write. You, you took a lot of time with us. You, you say you was showing us how to win. We say you was cheating. But I, you know, why did you do it? Well, I think, you know, first, the love I had and still have for all. Second, God blessed me right with opportunity. Whoever thought is for Keith Lansing, Michigan, who has so many doubters. No way you could make it today. Now, you look at Magic Johnson, the afro. I mean, this is this is a digression. But for you brothers who read the scriptures, another way that you could tell that the people of the book were so-called black is if you remember the story of Absalom, who used to poll his hair every year. Remember, he got into a civil war with his father, David, and he ended up getting captured because he rode his horse under a tree and his hair got caught in the branches above the tree. Why is that? Because he had an afro, an extremely large afro, very similar to the one that Magic Johnson was was shown to have while he was in high school. The way we were raised, I gave that to my parents. You know, they always were about helping the neighbor, help them, you know, somebody else. And so my thing was, you can't just keep the knowledge to yourself. Agreed. Yes, sir. Can't keep those things. You got to give those. Somebody gave it to me. Brian Terry, Furrow, Benny, why George Gervin, dear to us, yeah, big-time dice man, probably one of the top 30 players to ever play. The guy who scored like over 25,000 points. He just ran into Magic every year. Magic happened to have Kareem on his team, right? But this is my point. There's a lot of great players that have come through the NBA. People who want to act like, you know, how could you say Kobe Bryant is not top ten? Like, not many great players come to the NBA. Me, I can't be Russell, on and on and on. Those guys took me aside and really said, "Hey, this is how you got to do it." So, you know, we had all those guys teaching, giving it to me. So my thing was to pay it forward, give it to you. And then look what you did. You passed it on. Now you hear what Magic Johnson said? He said, Mark McGwire, I passed it on. Isiah Thomas, Herb Williams. For those of you who don't know, Herb Williams was a good center who played there in the '80s, played with the Pacers, and he came to the next. He was then he backed up Patrick Ewing on the Knicks, and he said, Dominique passed it on. So back then in the '80s, yes, players worked out together. It was depending on your personality. Magic Johnson had an extremely extroverted, friendly personality. He couldn't, no, you can't help that. And people who have similar personalities to him are gonna be drawn to somebody like him. So yes, the players worked out back then together. Yes, certain players who stayed to himself. But you know, people try to act like players only started to become friends since 2003. That's not true.
[Music]
I agree, and that's one of the themes of this channel. That's why I call this a pro-truth channel. And that's why I also implore brothers to correct me if I make any factual errors, because that's all I'm interested in, brothers. I'm only interested in facts. I'm not really interested in people's feelings and all this other. People get too captivated and encapsulated within the parameters of their feelings, and it stops them from being able to make rational evaluations. The only evaluations that are going to resonate are the ones that are made based on rationale. All right, don't get me wrong. You don't have to walk around and be a robot. We all have feelings and emotions, so on and so forth, and those things have to be taken into account. But the number one evaluator is rationale, period. And that's why it makes sense when you have knowledge to pass it, because when you give other people information, that enables them to make appropriate decisions and learn how to think better. When people all around you think better, you don't have to worry about them making bad decisions that are going to affect you. And you know, that's the point of having like a community. If you keep information to yourself, then you make yourself the only one who can make good decisions. When people around you are making bad decisions, eventually that's going to affect you. That's why if you have information, you have to share it with others so that they can learn how to think on a higher level, so that it makes it easier to live around them. You guys, you did subway. See, I think that even all those games when you came to the finals to watch me play, you were just had your notebook. Definitely do well. But also while I was rooting, I was observing, trying to learn as much as I possibly can. You should always tell me that we sit up at night when we need to. So did you sit up and say, "Okay, well, I should do that"? You're mine. And let me say this also. Another reason why Magic Johnson was so free with the information to Isiah is deep down, and he won't admit this, but deep down, he never saw the Pistons becoming a threat to him. He would never have given information away to Larry Bird or anybody who he felt like was a threat. He looked at Isiah Thomas as like a little brother who would possibly have a chance somewhere far, far, far down the road, but he never looked at him as a real threat. So I think that's what kind of shocked Magic by the late '80s when the Pistons rose up so fast, because their team was extremely intelligent. Their basketball IQ as a team was very high. When you have Chuck Daly, who by the way, had a CIA background, very much like we're very much like Gregg Popovich, you have a brainiac like Isiah Thomas, an extremely intellectual player like Mark, a part of me, like Joe Dumars, then you have a nutcase genius like Dennis Rodman, who really did not really understand himself when he first got to the Pistons, but eventually he became a basketball savant and knew where everyone was supposed to be. Bill Laimbeer, high basketball IQ. So all these things, I think, kind of snuck up on Magic. I don't think he would have divulged all that he divulged if he would have known that by the late '80s, the Pistons would have been as good as they were, because it probably cost him a couple of championships, to be honest with you. Because if we really want to go there, the Pistons should have beat them in '88 if, for all of Isiah Thomas's ankle injury. Because you were a student of the game. You watch how everybody else did it, and then you said, "When it was my turn, I'm gonna apply it." You know, and that's what the beautiful thing is. Yes, sir. Mark, Dominique, Herb. Well, let's be for Herb didn't do, and Dominique tried, but Dominique was not the brainiac that Isiah Thomas was. And Doc Rivers, who was who was a Chicago native and who knew Isiah Thomas very well, they both came in the league around the same time. Doc Rivers didn't have the talent to elevate the Hawks club. We passed on knowledge to each other, but also we applied that knowledge and then we executed on it. I was fortunate enough not only to learn from yourself but also the Celtics, right? And in both of your organizations, in all of you were very, I mean, yes, for those of you who don't know, a lot of you brothers probably notice already, especially the older brothers, but the Pistons were part of me, the Celtics would let Isiah Thomas travel with them during the playoffs in the early '80s when what after the Pistons would get knocked out of the playoffs, they would allow Isiah Thomas to travel with them. So he became very familiar with many of their players. He became very friendly with many of their players, particularly Kevin McHale.
[Music]
Got that Chicago play outfit on. Well, you know, to yourself, you know, Red, you know, Kevin, you know, ML Carr, ML Carr, still called me today. ML Carr, nutcase. Dude, ML Carr, flagrant foul, Dr. J. I can remember what game it was. I saw it on YouTube. I believe it was in the 1980 playoffs, or '81 playoffs, one of those games. He flagrant fouled the hell out of Dr. J while he was in the air. He totally submarine them. Y'all took us in, and not only that, but in the process of beating us, yeah, I wanted to teach. Well, that's the process, man. That's like the circle of sports. At least it was back then, before the players, before they before they exercised many of the free agency rights that they have today. They used to teach by whooping ass, and that was the cycle. That didn't know. It's like, it's like in the Serengeti, a lion raises a cub, and the cub goes off and comes back and takes the pride away from it. All right. So, no, Isiah Thomas is going to ask Magic about some of his failures and what motivated him, will galvanize him to keep moving forward and to get up. Right. My point is, and the question that I want to ask is, do all ups and downs, how did you keep getting up? Dan Larry Bird got a face for radio. No pain of losing. And that year, that was '84. You know, I had excelled every, every time. State championship, college championship, first year, '80, '82. Well, let's be for real. You guys got swept in '83. All right, the Sixers, what biases in '83. I never failed. You know, and it was my fault that we lost a championship. It was my fault. I turned the ball over, made some bad decisions. And then I cry, cry, not only that night and the next night, but also all summer. Ball, the summer. Yeah, I mean, and stayed in the house a lot too. Yeah. Hey, sometimes in life, shit's gonna happen where sometimes you need, you need to cry. That's why I don't begrudge a man. You know, you go off and you do your own thing and you get yourself together. Sometimes people hold in all that energy, and it, um, it comes out in other ways. So sometimes it's healthy for people to do what they need to do and go ostracize themselves, isolate themselves, and get themselves together. Yeah.
[Music]
We had never seen you fail. That's right. So it was like, Magic lost. That was like, yeah, right. Yeah. Well, he just lost in '83. Me, gay, got swept by the Sixers. So I'm guessing really they mean that Magic lost, that was his fault. Like the series came, the series pretty much in '84 came down to Magic making a bevy of errors in close games. Like he blew probably like three games out of the four games that they lost. That Magic had made better decisions, they probably would have won that series in five, honestly. Right. Yeah. But to watch he just did, you know, internally, and you know, he was quiet, you know, he was just just going in. And then you came back the next year, was hoping. And that's a testament not only to his inner fortitude, but also how he was raised by his parents. It's why it's very, very important to imbue a positive mentality. A lot of people have never been raised to believe in themselves. So when they face any type of adversity, they just fold up and want to blame everybody else instead of dealing with the fact that they lost and they got to come back, man. That's just his life. And life, you're gonna get fired from jobs, some broads gonna get mad, try to bring confusion into your life. Those type of things gonna happen. You might even fall out with a family member or with a close friend. But, um, you never know what tomorrow's gonna bring. You may be able to reclaim that relationship. Look at Magic and and Isiah Thomas. You can tell this is the first real time that they had an opportunity to talk out their issues and try to come back together. And they've had photograph opportunities together in between that falling out in the late '80s and now. So that shows you that during all that time period where they were taking photos together, all that wasn't real.
[Applause]
[Music]
One for Nair and redemption for what Magic Johnson. Now you can tell us just how much it bothered you. A year ago, choked to the championship series. Damn, Brent Musburger. This is you can tell us about when you choked last year.
[Applause]
[Music]
Seeing self-evaluation is the hardest thing. Yes, sir. To critique yourself. Hmm. To check off your weaknesses. That's hard. Any person to do. I agree. I agree. And you know, that's why the scriptures even tell you to, you know, to evaluate yourselves every day. You know, tell you that in Romans, the 12th chapter. And that is definitely very, very difficult. But when you make a practice of it, then you never have to worry about somebody else doing it. It's better for us to evaluate ourselves and have somebody else evaluate us, because by the time someone else is evaluating you, you're probably near destroying yourself. Let's be for real. Many times we come across people who have these outstanding issues, flaws, psychological disorders, and we don't want to say anything because we don't want to get involved. You know, we live in a society where everybody's supposed to feel uncomfortable with quote-unquote judging people. Yep. You have those who try to use the scripture in Matthew where they believe it Christ is telling people not to judge. Christ never said not to judge. He said, "Don't judge people for what you yourself are doing, because that makes you a hypocrite." In other words, what you can't tell somebody to put down a crack pipe and you a crackhead yourself. That's what he was saying. So, point being is this, in order for us to avoid getting castigated by others, if we take a very critical approach to ourselves, snip a lot of it in the bud, man. And beyond that, well, so-called black people, you wouldn't be that worried about the so-called white man if you were more worried about yourself and your own. And this is one of the themes of this channel. One of the main reasons why so-called black people always talking about the white man and the white woman is because they care about how the Caucasian thinks about them more than they care about what they think about themselves. And definitely more than what they think about how other so-called black people think about them. So that's the reason why you have these constant circular racial discussions that go nowhere. So that's the importance of being able to evaluate yourself and to undress yourself, per se. Do so. I had to go deep inside myself and say, "Hey, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I gotta go back to the lab. I gotta go to work." And so we went to work. We went to work that whole summer. And that's a great thing. That's why they became better. That's why Magic Johnson became a better person. So that's great for him. All right. So now Isiah Thomas is going to reflect on his own moment of self-evaluation. So you and I, because you know, we thought we were going to play you guys, right? Yeah, they should have been '87. And this, this is why. Let me say this. This is why I can't put Isiah Thomas in my top 10. I have some buddies coming in my comments who said that he believed that Isiah Thomas was top 10. And you could definitely argue that he's the greatest little man to ever play. And as I've stated, other than Michael Jordan, he's the only little man, or I part of me, non-big man to lead his team to multiple championships without a dominant big man in a big man era. Okay, those are long. Those are the only two players to do that. Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas are the only two players to lead their teams to multiple championships without a dominant big man and a dominant big man era. But why I cannot put Isiah Thomas in the top 10 is because of what he did in 1987, '85, where they should have went to the finals. I mean, you can make anything. You can make the case that Isiah Thomas got four championships because they could have beat the Celtics in '87 and then went on to play the Lakers in the finals. Please keep in mind that Laker team went six games with the Celtics in the finals in '87, and Kevin McHale had a broken foot, Larry, Larry Bird had a bad back. Like, who knows what the Celtics, what the Pistons could have done in '87 against the the Lakers. And the Lakers didn't match up well with them. Pistons had a lot of speed, and they had a lot of interchangeability. No, they had three players who could play point and shooting guard, and Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Vinnie Johnson. They had three guys who could do that. Then you had, you know, in '88, '87, '88, you had Adrian Dantley who was dominant in the low post, and you had a young Dennis Rodman who, who probably could have been a a gold medal to Kath elite. They would have gave them problems and could have guarded a Magic 94 feet. They could have brigade them some problems. You know, but Isiah Thomas had a brain lock, brain freeze. And Larry Bird showed his greatness. That's why I said you cannot really judge Larry Bird over his lack of athleticism because his brain works so fast and made up for whatever foot speed he lacked because he was thinking two steps ahead. He baited Isiah Thomas on that play, and he made up the distance so fast because he actually got to jump on him when Isiah Thomas telegraphed the path that the pass on the inbounds. And then we end up playing them. You was tragic. Magic, and then I became tragic. Isiah. Mm-hmm. Because you driven out the clock, maidens, then I threw the ball away.
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Dennis Johnson. If someone else is should be in the Hall of Fame, this is a guy, Dennis Johnson, who won what, two championships with Boston and one and one with Seattle. Why isn't he in the Hall of