It was time for a show

COVERING EARLY ’80S LAKERS WAS TO WITNESS A DYNASTY UNFOLD WITH MAGIC, KAREEM

The headline over a science story in The Times read, “In a Universe of Wonders, Remembering to Be Awed.” That reminded me of a conversation I had when I covered the Showtime Lakers 20 years ago.

Bill Dwyre, the sports editor, summoned me to his office one day and warned me about my cynicism, borne no doubt of covering too many Cub games for a Chicago newspaper. He told me to maintain a critical eye but also to make sure that I provided readers with a sense of how special that team was. I should, in short, remember to be awed.

It wasn’t difficult. With Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, it seemed at the time that the Lakers had the basketball equivalent of Ruth and Gehrig.

There was a question in the early ’80s about whether it was Kareem’s team or Magic’s team, but it was clear not much longer into the decade that it was Magic’s.

Abdul-Jabbar was “Cap” to his teammates, an acknowledgment of his role as the captain and, I assume, his stature in the game.

His teammates used to enjoy games more when he wasn’t playing in them, because of an injury or one of his frequent migraines. Pat Riley called them “the Greyhounds” because, without having to wait for Abdul-Jabbar to set up the offense, they could run for 48 minutes.

Of course, they had to have known in their heart of hearts that they wouldn’t win as many titles as they eventually did — five — without him. He had the greatest offensive weapon in the game’s history, the unblockable sky hook, and used it to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

Abdul-Jabbar, though, was underappreciated defensively. His role in initiating the heralded Laker fast breaks with blocked or altered shots was often obscured by the resultant coast-tocoast charge of the lighter brigade that almost invariably ended with a basket after a brilliant pass by Johnson.

What more can be said about Magic? He hardly ever failed to live up to his nickname. Almost nightly, he did something that I had never seen anyone, including him, do before.

Some teammates, Norm Nixon in particular, weren’t as convinced as the fans were when Johnson arrived in 1979 that he was the miracle child. Ironically, he won over teammates in the same moment that he, at least temporarily, lost many fans.

That was on the night in 1981 in Salt Lake City that he demanded to be traded because he didn’t believe either he or the Lakers could reach their potential with the half-court offense coach Paul Westhead was trying to teach them. Westhead was fired the next day and Johnson, as the inmate who supposedly was running the asylum, was booed, even in the Forum.

The fans eventually forgot, but Johnson’s teammates didn’t. Most of them didn’t like Westhead’s system either, but they didn’t say anything publicly for fear of the backlash. It was a different time, and they didn’t know how it would be received if Black players criticized a white coach.

So, Johnson did it for them. One reason was that he could. Jerry Buss wasn’t going to fire him. The other reason was that he knew it was his responsibility if he wanted to become the team leader, which, by virtue of his action, he did on that night in Utah.

One question that comes up a lot these days is whether the Kobe-Shaq Lakers could beat the Kareem-Magic Lakers. It’s possible if it were a two-on-two game and they were the only ones playing.

But the Showtime Lakers had incredible depth and would have won a series between them, in five or six games I believe, because of that. The 1982-83 Lakers had Michael Cooper, James Worthy and Bob McAdoo on the bench. Think about that.

Abdul-Jabbar couldn’t have stopped Shaquille O’Neal and vice versa. Cooper, the defender Larry Bird respected more than any other, would have done better than any of today’s defenders on Kobe Bryant, particularly when you consider Bryant would have been drained from guarding Johnson. Who else would you have do it? The “6 foot 1 while standing on a phone book” Derek Fisher?

I never saw them take a night off. Because of the grinding travel schedule, and maybe because of extracurricular activities that came to light after Johnson’s HIV diagnosis, they weren’t always sharp in every game. But I never thought it was because of a lack of effort. Those Lakers wanted to win every time out. Phil Jackson got the better of Riley when they were rival coaches in the Eastern Conference. But Jackson’s Chicago Bulls had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and Riley’s New York Knicks had Patrick Ewing and John Starks. I’d like to see Riley against Jackson in a fair fight.

To Riley’s credit, even after he was promoted from assistant to head coach 12 games into the 1981-82 season, he defended Westhead. Riley appreciated Westhead’s offense, believing the Lakers needed to learn it in case they found themselves mired in a half-court game, as they had the season before in losing a first-round playoff series against Houston.

Riley installed the offense before the playoffs in ’82, but in bits and pieces instead of all at once so that the players hardly cared or even noticed.

I’m not sure when Riley ever slept. When he wasn’t watching films after games, he was on the phone with his psychologist-wife, Chris, talking about his relationship with his players. They had a lot to talk about.

Nixon was the most tempestuous player and frequently challenged Riley. I asked Riley once why he put up with it.

“Because if I break him in the locker room, I might break him on the court,” Riley said. “I don’t want to do that.”

If the Rileys’ phone bills were exorbitant, no doubt it was because they spent so much time discussing Cooper.

He didn’t mind coming off the bench, as long as he knew he was going to get his minutes. Once, when he didn’t during the first half of a game in Detroit, he told [colleague Steve] Springer and me that he wanted to talk to us immediately after the game.

But by the time we got to his locker, the trainer, Jack Curran, had already talked him off the ledge.

“I’m just ... hey, Jack, what’s that word you used?” Cooper said, yelling to Curran. “Paranoid,” Curran said.

“Yeah,” Cooper said, “paranoid.”

He remains the only Laker ever voted defensive player of the year.

One thing that both L.A. Lakers dynasties had going for them — besides Chick Hearn — was that Jerry West built them. Now that he’s gone to Memphis, you have to wonder if there will be a Mitch Kupchak dynasty.