Renowned author Roland Lazenby tells Nestor about his latest biography on the life and times of Earvin “Magic” Johnson. From the roots of his basketball story through the Showtime Lakers to becoming one of the richest American athletes in the world through his passion for being an entrepreneur, businessman and civic mover.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
magic, magic johnson, jerry west, great, book, nba, basketball, baltimore, written, love, interviewed, championship, part, crab cake, game, larry bird, team, biography, ravens, author
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back, W N st Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are taking the Maryland crabcake tour out on the road I have a whole fresh slate of dates. We’re gonna be double crab cake and because it’s the holidays and I want to eat well and crab cakes and eggnog work for me. We’re going to be a Coco’s we’re going to be a Pappus we’re gonna be down to fadeless we’re going to be taking the show up or back down to Annapolis with Governor Westmore, all of it presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery we’ll be giving away ravens scratch offs as well as our friends at wind donation. 866 90 days when you buy two you get two free five years 0% financing with a friend window nation these days especially as a winter weather gets here. It’s nice to have new windows in my joint as well. And our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care sponsoring the Maryland crab cake tour. We got the governor, the mayor all sorts of things. I have a really big guest this week. And it’s I don’t even want to jinx it. It’s like number one on my bucket list. And I’ve had some great authors come on to with the holidays coming basketball season now hockey season now and obviously the Ravens in the middle of this, this run that they’re making Luke’s out knowings Mills doing all that this week for the game but I got a book on my desk and my wife loves when the books come here and they’re real thick and the rubbish man must be a lot going on in that book. This guy writes big fat books and biographies and sort of definitive pieces are writers writers we’d say and I’m a guy, it’s written a couple of books, and I know the madness that goes into this. This one is magic. The life of Earvin Magic Johnson maybe there’s a commander story somewhere in there, that there’s a connection there and maybe we can read their pass rush before it’s all over with Robin Lazenby is an author, a writer of writings and as a put this thing together hereafter, it feels like it would take me a lifetime of research to do one of these on Ray Lewis or on Cal Ripken or on one of our legends here. But you come at dishonest because you mean you take on a subject and you take a deeper dive. There’s been plenty of books written about magic, but lots folks can be reached for this when it’s a pleasure to have you on Roland, how are you?
01:59
I’m doing great. Nestor, thank you for having me on.
Nestor Aparicio 02:02
Well, when somebody puts together one of these kinds of things, and it’s got this sort of binding and this sort of thickness to it, and about a subject that Look man, I remember my dad 1979 You know, Michigan State, Larry Bird all that I fell in love with March Madness. I was 11 years old, was bad October for the Orioles that year but a really good spring for college basketball and a springboard. I mean, I feel like magic, everything that magic did happen in the limelight and Showtime. And I mean, I think it was one of those seminal moments like you remember where you were when Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV. And we were all concerned for his health, his life. The press conference all of that points 30 years ago, and you go and find the things he’s done off the court since he stopped dribbling. There’s a whole book in that right.
02:56
Oh, there is I mean, Forbes just revealed today. He’s now a billionaire. And of course, that’s very important to magic, because he’s trying mightily to keep up with Michael Jordan. And you know, Michael is clocking in at about 3 billion but magic with the way he’s acquiring businesses and properties. And with how intense he is. You just never know he may get there.
Nestor Aparicio 03:21
Well, in putting this together. I mean, I guess there’s so many parts you could focus on in a book like this. You know, I guess anyone that’s accomplished in the way he’s accomplished not just financially, but been a, you know, a public figure. well beyond the basketball court, even when he he was a celebrity beyond the basketball side of things. Before the wrap people took over and all one of the basketball players and was back and forth. You know, magic had the smile magic had the point guard and the weirdness of his game of being so big and playing a position that was made more for Mugsy. Bogues, right. Where do you start to take on magic? And how many other books have been written about him? I’m just guessing there’s got to be dozens. And I’m sure you pored through some of that to say what we want to take on new territory with magic story.
04:13
Well, you know, when I, I wrote Michael Jordan, the life that came out from Little Brown 2014 is in 21 languages now just came out in Portuguese. And but when I started that there were 27 other books named Michael Jordan. But, you know, biography is all about context. And these are amazing. When you think about it. These are amazing stories, American stories, and when magic was headed out to LA in 1979, as a 19 year old, the NBA just seen a 25% drop in its regular season broadcast ratings. Nobody had managed in in the 30 or so years. There’s an American basketball and operated. Nobody had really managed to create anything that the general public cared about with the NBA. It was really tough. The NBA had to stage games for a lot of its existence, particularly its early existence. With the Harlem Globetrotters doubleheaders, just so it could sell tickets. And yet, here comes this sort of, I mean, it’s this otherworldly force of nature. Here’s Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, one white one black coming out of the 70s. But Magic Johnson has been this kid that has just dominated the agenda. From the time he was in junior high on every team he ever played on. As his teammates told me, I couldn’t play the way I wanted to play. I had to play the way magic wanted me to play or I wasn’t going to get to play. And the coaches were faced with that too. And so here’s this force of nature, LA is in tough shape. They have Kareem Abdul Jabbar, but they’ve gotten rid of a lot of talent. But magic gets to LA is a 19 year old kid and the first time in his life. Here’s Kareem add to gem bar. Nobody messes with him. As Ron Carter told me, Kareem says jump, you say how high and magic suddenly stopped in his tracks and realized he had to change what he did. He had to get along with the great Korean. And he did. It’s just part of how he began to conquer the world.
Nestor Aparicio 06:40
Well, I like seeing the lens of the NBA in the 70s. So you know, I was born in 68 aparece. Here’s my last name. So I was born into a baseball family in Baltimore, but my father loved the NBA. My father grew up screaming Pennsylvanian love the NBA. And my father went to all of those bullets, Knicks games, Willis Reed all that period of time in West onself. And my father was so pissed at a pole and my father hated a polling for moving the Baltimore bullets to the Capitol bullets in the Washington Bullets. So I come at this differently in 75 678. I’m watching greavy. And I’m watching the biggie and I’m watching Wes and I’m watching Barry and I’m watching the Seattle SuperSonics. And and watching the Golden State Warriors and watching a really good bullets team on channel 20. Through the snow, there’s no cable television they weren’t on in Baltimore, Baltimore might as well have been 1000 miles from the Capitol center. I never got to go to a bullets game as a kid when Kareem came in as a buck. And then as a Laker after that in the late 70s. So for me this the notion all these years, like I’m watching the white shadow, staying up late watching that on CBS. So I mean, I loved basketball. I love Dr. Jay who I ran into in Vegas last week in a casino. It was just like, I had a moment with Dr. Jay and I interviewed him and whatnot. But like, I didn’t want to bother him. I’m like he was he was my guy. Dr. J was my player. So you know, ABA, I collected ABA card 70 567, all of that. So to me, the NBA was a very, it was a part of my thing because of my dad. But I look back and see tape delay, broadcast and championship games that weren’t on live and like thinking about how mature football was from the Brent Musburger and Jane Kennedy and Sunday to how national that was to CBS running tape delay games, and then magic and Larry Bird, literally changing everything in time for Kareem and Dr. J and some of those players to still drink from it in the early 80s. But building something that the league has never looked back. And I I think to myself, if magic played for the trailblazers and Larry Bird had played for the I don’t know, name in the Name one of the Utah Jazz, or maybe it’s New Orleans jazz then, but it might have been different. But I mean, the placement of these players, it’s it’s the butterfly that really changed the league for every Jordan and LeBron. They came after them.
09:15
And as I’m hearing this, I’m thinking, you know, I wonder how many folks in Baltimore know that Baltimore was the bullets was a huge part of the early NBA. They played at Uline arena. They played at the old and they would play in hotels, and they played at the old Broadwood Hotel. Robert Jake Embry, I interviewed him he was the Baltimore owner, they would slide on that floor in the hotel and make plays. This was in the late 40s and, and whatnot, but Baltimore has that NBA blood coursing through his veins currently
Nestor Aparicio 09:50
acumen one time, Coach Oh, it’s so great.
09:54
He was so great. I interviewed him and you know, he went on to the The pistons he was the one official in league history who went from being an official to a coach. He went and coached the Fort Wayne Pistons. And Charlie was such a treat to interview. And so it’s so great to hear you talk about he
Nestor Aparicio 10:14
was he many people here compare me and my career to him and he and I crossed paths in the 80s and 90s with a wonderful guy and there’s a there’s a road named after him down in Glen Burnie Charlie Eichmann drive, it’s leads to a playground. And it’s, he’s, he’s, you’re talking about Baltimore in the NBA, and Mugsy and everything that went on here with the Dunbar guys, you know, three months he was on recently.
10:40
Brain, right, right guy.
Nestor Aparicio 10:42
Oh, I mean, so. So Baltimore has been a part of all of this. So, magic is now invested in here and in DC and in these, these urban communities, what has made him tick, I mean, the basketball side, I saw at Showtime, the leadership Pat, right, like all of that, I am fascinated by the entrepreneurship. And by you know, the dumb jock part of look, you play your dribble, you make your money, your spokesperson, you do TV, but the modern era of what Jordan has become, and I think what some other athletes I think of oddly are people of that era that had money and wealth, but but ownership of things that work, we hear the failed restaurants, the failed bars, the failed business, you know, that getting ripped off, like all of that magic has, over the last 3035 years, especially after the HIV part, not only lived a healthy life, which we were all concerned about years ago, but has has taken that next step to entrepreneurship that a lot of athletes dream about and talk about and, and quite frankly, fail at.
11:54
Yeah, you know, magic with him. It’s all organic. This is stuff he wanted to do as a kid. First of all, his old man was an auto worker in Lansing, Michigan. And the old man had a trash hauling business on the side magic and his brothers had to work on it. But magic clean the offices there are two black businessman who are very successful in Lansing. Magic idolized both of them. The other organic part of it is he sat in the theaters on Saturday mornings, in Lansing, and he just absolutely loved movie houses. And so all of this is very organic. But you know, his first big money now that he’s a billionaire, we can look back and see that his first big money came out of the Dream Team, suddenly, and this is not a story known to most Americans. But suddenly, after the Dream Team, there was this tremendous demand globally for American basketball. And here he comes with the Magic Johnson all stars, and he is traveling all over the place putting his guys in Lear jets. He’s playing on every continent, maybe even an article, but I mean, they’re everywhere.
Nestor Aparicio 13:07
And you know what that spawn Mugsy doing that here, right? And other people going to their hometown and putting on a celebrity, I’ll come to your game, you come to my game. There was so much of that going on here. Even in Baltimore, when we didn’t have a team. We had a game every year. And I don’t I don’t know if magic came once or twice. But it was like that when he put it on. Guys came in and they sold 12,000 tickets here for the fuel fun,
13:31
right? And these were not no, these were not celebrity fundraisers, these this was a traveling basketball team playing teams all over Europe and Asia. And magic was making 21st century money off of this. And he came out of the gate once once his HIV diagnosis. And the controversy over that had denied him basketball. People around the globe had no trouble with it. And he was making a lot of money. But his ambitions were much larger than that, you know, Jerry buss had spent a lot of time really teaching him how to read the bones of a business. But I interviewed Peter Guber owns Mandalay, the film company in the early 90s. Peter and Peter course owns a chunk of the warriors chunk of the Dodgers. And in the early 90s, he was president of Sony USA, and magic calls him up and says, I want to take a business meeting with you. And here comes magic with his financial manager, these two black guys to meet Peter Guber, and they tell him they know and Sony USA is building theaters at the time. And they say we got a situation for you of underserved communities. They came in and it was their idea was here the numbers here are the black communities that need a theater and boom goober turned around. him to his Sony people and said, Let’s look at these numbers and they bought it. They bought the whole thing. Suddenly, those Magic Johnson theaters are all over the place still today, magic long, divested them and moved on. But he and goober became partners in everything. In fact, when goober went to the warriors, and they were looking for a managing basketball mind, who did they want? They wanted Magic Johnson. They didn’t want Jerry West and asked magic to come be the owner piece of the warriors and to manage all that franchise. Magic said can’t do it. It was stunned. Stunned Peter Guber, he said I can’t do it. Now, goober, and magic own the date and dragons. They later went and bought all these different minor league sports and had a blast doing it, but offered the warriors who wouldn’t jump at that, when magic turned it down. They went and hired Jerry West to do it. And of course, that was all an important factor in in building that warrior success in a century. But magic has just been a nut. He owns contracting companies. He owns food service companies, he is doing every insurance companies, the list of stuff. I said, you know, a cynic would say he has as many business partners as he had sexual partners back in the day. He and that’s by his own account. It is just absolutely crazy. What he has done as a businessman Ron Lazenby
Nestor Aparicio 16:35
is here, he writes up biographies of great American athletes primarily. So I’ve written some other spaces as well. You know, we’ll get back to magic in a minute. But just tying this all together what, what makes, I mean, I’ve been crazy. I’ve written four books, and every time I write them, it’s very Jack Torrance. It’s like I should go out to the shining hotel and just type away and only you know, send me food and drinks under the door. And I’ve written them on championships, and the Ravens won a championship I got inspired. I’m like, I’m gonna dedicate the next 100 days of my life to getting a book together and, and John Eisenberg laughs at me all my author friends, like we take for five years. But the other book, I’m like, you weren’t trying to get it sold by Father’s Day, after a championship. In the heat of the moment. I’m a journalist by trade and a sports writer by trade. So writings always 12 inches, 18 inches a column, I tend to be curiously long in general, as apparently so to you and these biographies. But what is the seed that makes you say, This is my next one? This is the focus, and then too much like all of my author buddies dive in to find a manuscript that is I haven’t checked this out, but we’re about 100 pages here.
17:45
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I’ve done plenty of those championships stories. That’s, that’s one of the things I was doing in the, you know, Georgetown, John Thompson hired me to do his championship book in 1984, which was a big break. I also at the same time, did a deal with the late Billy packer, we ended up doing five books together. But, you know, I had started working with the Celtics, and in the 80s, Billy and I did a history of the Final Four that sold a lot of copies for a publisher. And so I moved into the NBA, I wanted to do that. But I have to tell you the Chicago Tribune book division back then there were a lot of these regional book divisions that were investing in championship projects and things like that. And the Chicago Tribune book division hired me, I was it the all star game in 92. In Orlando, when magic came back from HIV, I was there when they hired me to write a history of the bulls. Once I got into Chicago, and started doing all of that the bulls projects and the freelancing just sort of came at me like a batting cage. You know, it was like, hit this one quick hit that one. And it was rapid fire. But the main thing is, you know, it’s all relationships. I met the late great Tex winner, he became a dear friend. You know, I really spent a lot of time with those bulls. And I wrote a book on the last day and season that the director for the last dance doc said was his Bible was called Blood on the horns. But I went on from there. That basis, I worked with the early Lakers with magic and Showtime, but then I really spent a lot of time with Kobe. And so I did these books where I was on location, much like you working with the Ravens where you’re there around a team, you get to know people, you get to observe things. And I just had a big segue in my life where I moved into full league biography, because I wanted the context, the deep background on the families, what makes these people all these great competitors. And we all know the racial history of America. Got it is absolutely horrific the character assassination of a black male has been. It’s almost like the buffalo, the the assassination of, of the greatest part of this country in a lot of ways. And yet, here we have a day now where the global heroes, my Kobe books and 12 languages Jordans in 21, magics, already licensed in seven people all over the globe want to figure out American society, because our race is very complex. And the rise of these great competitors, as cultural figures is a big part of that I just sort of happened to catch that wave,
Nestor Aparicio 20:45
and also succeeding off the court off the field away from the limelight in other ways than just how many championships you won, or how many all star games you went to, or how many trophies are in the closet. That’s something for me, I’m in my 32nd year of doing radio here, we moved to a brand called Baltimore positive in recent years, not just because, as sports writers or sports journalists, we’re treated like garbage by modern athletes, because they learn that from their Pop Warner coach through their agents through their like, it’s just a much different gig than it was 39 years ago, when I was covering hockey or even covering Dr. Jays last game against the Milwaukee Bucks up at the spectrum. In the late 80s. It’s changed a lot. But the access to someone they would trust it was magic, helpful or not, I often have to ask, because I never really know when I see a book. And I think in most cases, a journalist would say, Well, you know, I mean, maybe I knew him a little bit or whatever. But there is inherent. I don’t want to say embarrassment or down parts of anyone’s life did you’re gonna write a book this thick, it cannot mean magic went through HIV. I lived through that that was there was no better in the world right
21:57
there for all of that in LA. And talking to him every day. I will tell you that for this book. First of all, Magic’s the greatest control freak in the history of everything. And they all
Nestor Aparicio 22:08
are right everyone you ever see Kobe Bryant, right?
22:13
Yeah, well, I was there. You know, I spent a lot of time with Kobe is a lost lonely young man. He didn’t have any control over anything when he was at the Lakers. But, but my point with magic from the time he was a junior high player, he was controlling the agenda. And he just got better and better at it. It started with his rebounding, he got the ball in his hand, he was strong, no look passes in the sixth grade. But the point in all of this is he has this. And biography is different from autobiography, he has had his own word, his own effort at controlling his narrative. We all want to control our own narratives, superstars, rock stars often get to do that. But with a biography, you have to say, look, I’m writing this book on you. You can trust me or not. And what happened is magic thought about it said, Yeah, I’m going to work with you. Then a documentary deal came along. And he said, No, I’m not. But lon Rosen, and all of his representatives. And so many of the people whose life wanted to see this done. Lon Rosen, his longtime friend, and agent, you know, he, the guy probably gave me 60 interviews for this book. And so things would go to magic. But magic, you know, become a billionaire, because you got a lot of time on your hands, he really didn’t have a lot of time to be involved. As I explained in the back part of the book. I said, Look, I don’t need your time. This is about what people observed view. This has to be an independent record. And of course, there are so many positive things. You know that the negative stuffs there, I never shy away from that. But it’s not like I’m there to dwell on negative moments. I mean, you don’t have to say that he slept with 300 plus women a year, more than once for people to get the picture. But I do explain all that and the cost and trouble with that. But you know, magic is now getting all these reports. People are telling him, he really needs to read the book. You’ll love it. And suddenly, I’ve got his interest. And so that’s good. If he does or he doesn’t, you know, Michael got very angry at me, Michael Jordan and Michael had been great to me in my years in Chicago. And I, you know, I always send the book to people let them look at it ahead of time. When I did one on Phil Jackson came out in 2000 LA Times best seller and I sent it to him for months ahead of time.
Nestor Aparicio 24:54
And under the guise that he could change like say, hey, that didn’t happen that way rollin I want you to Get it right, or under the guise of hey, read it before the world sees it
25:04
under the guise that if there’s something wrong, he’s gonna argue about it. And I’ll include his point there. On the horns, I gave it to Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause. And that’s when they unloaded on Phil and told me so many things. And Phil had been great to me. But he had lied. He had told major lies in some of the interviews. And Phil knew that I sent him the manuscript. I never heard a word back from him. 20 years to the day later, in 1999, Phil sends me an email with some answers for some of the things in the biography. That’s how crazy Phil is. But I always give people a chance to look at it, and to see and you know, journalism,
Nestor Aparicio 25:51
if you’re not pissing them off to some degree, right? Like, right, well, they
25:54
all get pissed off. But Michael shook my hand, he shook my hand after it came out, they treat me well down there. I tell these family stories, and they are powerful. The with the data mining available today, I was able to track magics family back to the 1830s to North Carolina to his fourth great grandmother. And it opened up a world that just knocked me off my feet. And things that I just couldn’t begin to imagine. And it really brought. I was already you know, I’d written Michael Jordan, my book and Michael Jordan deals heavily with his great grandfather, who was born on the coastal plain in 1891. And his story is powerful. And it’s all about moonshining and sharecropping, with Jerry West. I did the Jerry West bio for ESPN. In 2009. Help Jerry West people came over here with Georgetown. Um, excuse me what Jamestown not Georgetown came over here, Lord de la war, Delaware. Thomas West, that’s his lineage. But at one point along the way, Jerry West, great, great, great, how many great grandfather’s got kicked out of the family. And they ended up as dirt scratching hillbillies over in West Virginia. So each of these backstories when you look at it, it’s a and Pete the great Pete Newell, the great basketball coach, and later, GM of the Lakers, told me in 1991, that if I really wanted to understand Jerry West, I had to understand West Virginia, and this this story, these family stories are heartbreaking, Jerry and his and these great competitors, just to summarize things, they’re all incredible perfectionist, and they are all deeply influenced often by their mothers, but also relationship with fathers. And Jerry and his mother were just these fierce, crazy, insane perfectionist, and they both loved dearly Gerry’s older brother David, who was killed in the Korean War. And Jerry, who was only 13, his mother both had this horrible nervous breakdown over the death of David West, the brother. But my point in in all of this is that each of these family stories has this very surprising but important American narrative that dovetails into everything they accomplish. And it reflects so many of things related to not just their character, but the family character of these great American people.
Nestor Aparicio 28:59
wrote amazing me doing the deep dive on all things magic, a life of Earvin Magic Johnson the book is available makes it perfect holiday gift, basketball season just getting started always great to have authors on talking about the deep dives into this sort of thing. You mentioned all of this family history and trees. You don’t know that when you dive into this, right? I mean, no,
29:19
no, it’s It’s shocking. As you get in and with the data mining suddenly, boom. You know, there’s there’s a first name as grandmother as a first name Ferebee. There’s not another version, I found one other therapy in the whole record for North Carolina, the entire story. And, and I had to fight to get this in the book. But I think it’s important that we have a sense of who we are. I mean, this is yes, this is a great story for a black American family. But it is it’s really the story of American freedom and it belongs to us. First those families, but it’s important for all of us to, to cherish and appreciate. And I’m sorry, I don’t want to get on a soapbox about it. It’s just sort of how operate, and you find amazing things. And of course, Magic Johnson. There’s a reason he’s been an amazing person. He’s not perfect. And I don’t dwell on his imperfections. But I make the point. But each and every way he did wrong things, and he’s done his share. But the point in all of this is, it’s like Jerry West said, Jerry admitted. Jerry West admitted me in 1990. That he didn’t think the Lakers should have drafted magic number one overall, because you couldn’t tell how good he was going to be. You couldn’t see it. And Jerry West told me something. Then I was interviewing him in Dallas in his hotel room, I was scouting talent. And he said, you know, you can see what a player can do on the floor. But you can’t read their hearts. And what and Billy Packer said the same thing, the final four crew from that great game, they didn’t think magic or Larry, either one, whatever, have a hope and pro basketball. And but what what Jerry West said is, you can’t see what’s inside and you can’t read the sides of their hearts. Dr. Jack Rams in Portland said, We didn’t think magic could ever be a point guard. We terrorized him because he didn’t have a left hand when he came in the league as a rookie. The next year, he had a left hand, and he did it all himself. And so you cannot measure the size of the heart. And that is where magic takes his place. At the table. One of the biggest if not the biggest heart in the history of a game of very big hearts.
Nestor Aparicio 31:53
Magic Johnson more than just the owner of the Washington commander’s they got to change those jerseys. Oh my god. And you go back to Jack can cook right I mean, like your your
32:01
labor connection. Jack. So the Lakers and got the hell out of LA after the big divorce and went and became Mr. Redskin.
Nestor Aparicio 32:13
Yeah, and we’re all better for that. I guess. He’s here, the book is on magic. So I gotta add all you crazy as authors, you’re always you got three projects. What are you doing LeBron? What are you doing next year?
32:26
I got. I am working as a producer on a documentary about LeBrons.
Nestor Aparicio 32:32
I knew I didn’t even say it in the notes. But I knew he was next. Well,
32:37
you know, I’m doing a project on David Stern. And you know, years ago, I thought the NBA needs an NBA Finals history. And the NBA love the idea. They bought it. And I got to go around interviewing everybody. This was in 1989. And 90. I got to interview guys like Robert Jake Embry, I got to interview, you know, all of the great early owners, les Harrison, and, you know, in Rochester, and all of these great characters who came in, you know, many of them were of the Jewish faith. And they, you know, basketball was a Jewish game before it was an American game, really. But they, in the wake of the Holocaust and World War Two, they were the hockey arena Owners Association. And they went in bigger for basketball, to start the BA, the Basketball Association of America, which segwayed into the NBA. And so this is a rich tapestry of a lot of different Americans. And it is a great story, isn’t it? The whole thing, the great players, the crazy owners, and these insane competitors, the Larry birds and magic Johnson’s that just captured and Michael Jordan who captured the attention of the global audience.
Nestor Aparicio 34:16
Well, maybe the NBA is going to get my attention back because I I have waned every year in my life. I’ve watched less NBA cared less NBA, we have no future of getting a team here. The local team the wizards are the bastardized version of our stolen team from my childhood. It’s kind of weird, they’re never any good. To run into Dr. J. And to have this rambling, wonderful conversation with you about magic, and maybe maybe it’s meant to be that I’m supposed to go old school and get myself a very jersey from 76.
34:49
You want to look for somebody to blame it on.
Nestor Aparicio 34:52
Go ahead. Who am I blaming it on?
34:53
Because basketball is done a total transformation. You think of all these great stars man Cycling Kobe and magic and Larry. And they all came down the pipeline. And basketball was evolving. But it was this great sport. But there was a man very unsatisfied by all this a very powerful man named Jerry Cole Angelo. And you know, they did a big hype book on seven seconds or less and he was in control the competition Committee. He was sick and tired of Phil Jackson and the triangle winning championships and he came in and shaved the timeline. You know, it used to be 10 seconds to get the ball across to that core shaved this eight, then they they shave the reset clock to 14 from 24. And what he did, he sped up the game with the idea that Phoenix could probably finally win a championship. But yeah, you know, and Mike, Dan Tony, a wonderful man from West Virginia, but and a brilliant offensive coach, but a guy who should never be allowed near a defense. And what happened is they never won. But Mike Dan, Tony trans. transformed the game of basketball into what you see today with everybody jacking up all these ugly threes. Now don’t get me wrong. Speaker Golden State Warriors. That’s a thing of beauty. They play they could play in any league at any time. But it has unleashed a a curse of ugliness on New Age basketball, nobody watches complete games. They’re all stat freaks. And that’s what the old owners knew. That’s what Eddie Gottlieb in Philadelphia knew he had jumpin Joe Fox. Kentucky hillbilly became the first 20 points per game score. He played him a lot of minutes. What did he do with Will he played will every minute of the season except for because fans love high scoring. And so that’s what CL Angelou is doing. It’s not like a crime he committed. But he wanted to speed things up and they’re making so much money from the sped up game. I’m not sure who’s paying all this money, but they’re making so much money. I’m not sure there will ever go back.
Nestor Aparicio 37:05
We’ll call Angelo Reinsdorf all these names of yesteryear that like the baseball and basketball as well out of Chicago, rather lazy. He’s written a book on Magic Johnson. He writes lots of books. My gosh, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady even go through back Johnny, you haven’t even mentioned Johnny, you How do I take 2828 minutes and not mention John, to you to you?
37:24
That’s a 64 page book. You know, sort of a juvie. I’ve written a lot of different books. That’s sort of a juvenile picture book. That really was a testament to the great Johnny you.
Nestor Aparicio 37:38
Well, we love Johnny you around here. You’re in Baltimore, my friend. Hey, if you ever make it this way, we got a crab cake in your honor. I’m never gonna let you have a tourist crab cake coming up here for sale in Virginia. You probably get a decent crab cake down there, though. From time to time right now. Okay, we’ll get up here then. Well, we’ll make we’ll get you Daisy cracking Robin Lazenby, the great author, sports writer, educator as well. i My pleasure for all that you do, please come back and and bend my ear with your next book and tell me some old stories. I mean, I wished you had written a wooden book because I had a million questions about wood but
38:11
you know Billy and I did that history. The final four we did a lot when we Coach Wooden for that book. But you know they’re there. Seth Davis did a great wouldn’t book.
Nestor Aparicio 38:21
Oh, that book was fantastic. I had Seth on the show to John Wooden special to me, because we were born on the same day. We share October 14 as a birthday. And my father loved John Wooden, you know, and so,
38:33
and I actually write son of Indiana.
Nestor Aparicio 38:36
I had John Wooden on my show on our birthday back in 1999 at Chicago when I was syndicated Sporting News Radio One on One sports and I don’t have the tape. I like it. It is it’s the Holy Grail of missing tapes that I the John Wooden chat does not exist in the in my archives. So I’m a little Hey, you know what it happened? I know what happened. Roland, thank you very very much. Be very generous with your time. Please come back again. Talk to more basketball with his pal All right.
39:08
I’m happy to do it Nestor this has been a lot of fun. Thank you for being such an engaging host with great questions.
Nestor Aparicio 39:15
I try over 32 years I try to dry I tried hard in this one. We’ll get him up here for a crack it’s all presented by the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends and window nation as well as Jiffy Lube. Multi care looks at no one’s meals get you ready for ravens football your this week. We’re ready for the holidays and crab cakes and pumpkin pie and all the good cheer that comes crab cakes and Turkey maybe that’s a new thing. I’m Nestor we are wn st am 1570 Towson Baltimore. We never stopped talking. Little Magic Johnson. It’s a Baltimore positive stay with us.
