JERRY BUSS: I think probably one of the longest
American institutions there is,
is when you look up on a sign in an old store,
and it says "Peterson & Sons."
That's a long tradition in American life,
and exactly the same thing is happening here.
This is now Buss, Sons, & Daughters.
[uneasy music]
JIM BUSS: My dad wanted us to grow up
without the hardship that he had.
- Very good.
JIM: But he didn't want us to grow up with a silver spoon
in our mouth. He wanted us to work.
JEANIE BUSS: He never intended to build a kingdom,
but that's what he did.
It's bigger than any one person, any one owner,
any one coach, any one player.
He wanted the Lakers to be great
for the city of Los Angeles that took him in
and gave him the family that he had wanted so much.
EMCEE: Okay, there he is now.
Let's do it the way we have been doing it!
Ladies and gentlemen, Jerry Buss, right there.
[cheers and applause]
JIM: Never did we think that it would involve
into what it is today, not even close.
You know, it wasn't even a thought.
REPORTER: Time now for sports and a big shakeup
for the LA Lakers front office.
REPORTER: The Lakers are now caught
in the middle of a family power struggle
that is threatening to tear the team apart.
REPORTER: There's a family feud brewing
over who will run the Los Angeles Lakers.
♪ ♪
- Jerry Buss never would've expected that
to happen from his own kids
because he put them in a position.
They knew what their jobs were.
He put the plan in place.
They just didn't want to follow it.
♪ ♪
ROGER TROUTMAN: ♪ California love ♪
["California Love" playing]
♪ California ♪
♪ Knows how to party ♪
♪ California ♪
REPORTER: There he is, his first shot as an owner.
Think he likes it?
ROGER TROUTMAN: ♪ California ♪
COMMENTATOR: At this moment, I can't believe it.
INTERVIEWER: What's the future?
Want to replace your father at the top?
- Yeah.
BUSS: Between my daughters and my sons,
there's certainly enough sports teams to go around.
♪ ♪
INTERVIEWER: Are you and the rest of the family--
are you guys all on the same page?
ROGER TROUTMAN: ♪ We keep it rocking ♪
REPORTER: The Lakers caught in the middle
of a family power struggle.
♪ ♪
BUSS: I think I've really left them with something.
REPORTER: Five, four, three, two, one.
And a happy 1979!
[disco music]
♪ ♪
- And the winner is... The Deer Hunter.
♪ ♪
REPORTER: Well, if you were outside at all
over the weekend, you know it.
We had the worst smog situation in five years.
REPORTER: Today, Governor Jerry Brown of California
was at the White House,
asking for help with his state's gas shortage.
REPORTER: Gasoline is averaging 61¢ a gallon.
REPORTER: Gang warfare in East Los Angeles
is on the rise and is more violent than ever.
- Welcome, everyone, to the ESPN SportsCenter.
We'll be filling you in
on the pulse of sporting activity,
not only around the country,
but around the world as well.
ANNOUNCER: The Montreal Canadiens
have won the Stanley Cup!
ANNOUNCER: The Steelers have won it,
the best Super Bowl game of them all.
ANNOUNCER: Pittsburgh wins it.
ANNOUNCER: The Seattle Super Sonics
have won the NBA World Championship Series.
♪ ♪
[distant music]
♪ ♪
JAMAAL WILKES: The team was
kind of in disarray at the time.
We were searching for direction and leadership.
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR: When I came to the Lakers,
they placed so much responsibility on me
because they paid a lot of money to get me.
But once I got here,
I--I delivered, uh, you know, MVP performances.
ANNOUNCER: Come back in the game,
and then sick man stayed rolling--
and oh, Kareem is upset.
- Kareem will come in and take your team from winning 20 games
to 50 games.
He's 7'2". He's unstoppable.
You know, he shuts the game down at the end of the game.
Could pass the basketball,
so he did carry a lot of the weight.
He took a lot of the heat.
So if you're not winning, it's Kareem's fault.
- It certainly wasn't a championship-caliber team
at that point in time
because we had so many needs,
and that changed almost overnight.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
INTERVIEWER: Are you aware of what you've done this week?
BUSS: I must admit, I'm kind of stunned.
I'm in a daze.
Uh, I think it's gonna take months
before it slowly seeps in what has actually been done here.
JOHNNY BUSS: Whether it was baseball
or football or basketball,
my dad was a huge sports fan.
INTERVIEWER: What was your first meeting
with Jabbar like?
- To think that I could actually sit in a room
with him and shake hands with him--
it was like a dream come true.
It was more of a fan in admiration
of his biggest idol
than it was the owner/player relationship.
JEANIE: He'd often talk about just having enough money
so that we could have season tickets to the Lakers
and the Dodgers and USC football.
And he never lost sight of that.
But it was pretty big risk for my dad to go all in
and buy a team because at that time,
no one in the NBA was making money.
- In the 1970s, the NBA
was not nearly as popular as it would become.
Baseball was still very big,
the NFL got to be hugely popular,
and college football always had a huge audience.
A lot of people in mainstream society
were not paying so much attention to basketball.
INTERVIEWER: When you bought the Lakers,
were they making large profits at the time?
- No. No, they were not.
I think, at that time, the combined statement
of the Lakers and the Kings, uh, broke even, if anything.
Maybe showed a small loss.
JIM: When we took over the Forum,
I don't think the Lakers turned a profit,
and the Kings definitely didn't turn a profit,
and so the pressure was on.
OFFICIAL: It is now exactly 12:00 noon.
The draft is officially open.
I want to welcome all the fans that are gonna join in
and help make this draft a success.
- We had to flip a coin to see who had the first draft choice.
OFFICIAL: Chicago calls heads. We'll now make the flip.
Tails it is. - Hey!
Yeah!
STEVE SPRINGER: Back in those days,
the two worst teams, one in each conference--
they flipped a coin, whoever got the first pick.
And so the Lakers had the pick
because of a deal with the Jazz,
and the Jazz had the worst record that year.
- There's a lot of speculation who that pick will be,
but my dad knew when he watched the NCAA tournament
that there was a young player, Magic Johnson.
[upbeat music]
MAGIC JOHNSON: It was a dream come true, really, for me.
Uh, I won the state title back in my home state,
and then my next compliment was playing a game
like tonight in the finals,
and just hope we play our part and win the game.
BUSS: Obviously, it's thrilling when you make
the first pick in a draft, any year,
but Earvin had that "it" factor.
ANNOUNCER: Magic Johnson with the ball!
Oh, he scores!
And he is bound three on one.
ANNOUNCER: Here it comes! The alley-oop!
A great shot, sir!
ANNOUNCER: Magic Johnson for 15,
and he loves to hit that backboard.
BUSS: Magic is somewhat unique
compared to other players
because he was a star when he was 19.
Usually, you have to wait until somebody's 24, 26.
Uh, in Magic's case, it was completely obvious
that he was destined to become one of the game's superstars.
OFFICIAL: The first pick, the Los Angeles Lakers
select Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Michigan State.
6'8", 200 pounds.
INTERVIEWER: How do you see your role with the Lakers?
MAGIC: I'll probably be a passer or a play maker,
just setting up the team,
trying to set up my players to score
and just trying to run the show.
INTERVIEWER: Excited about being a pro?
- Definitely, definitely. I'm very excited, you know?
I love the challenge and the--
you know, see what I can do.
And, uh--and that's the main thing.
[bright music]
♪ ♪
When I was first drafted, I was excited
because it was the LA Lakers and it was Hollywood.
You know, coming from a small town
like Lansing, Michigan,
I had never witnessed anything like this.
SINGER: ♪ Sometimes it might seem ♪
♪ That I'm neglecting you ♪
♪ But I'd love to spend more time ♪
MAGIC: It was also a chance
to play with the most dominant player
at that time in our game,
which was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
ANNOUNCER: There's Kareem! The last time!
MAGIC: Listen, he was the MVP of the league
for many years before I got there.
SINGER: ♪ Got so much work, yeah, yeah ♪
JEANIE: If that coin flip hadn't gone our way,
we would've ended up with the second pick,
David Greenwood,
and we wouldn't be sitting here today.
REPORTER: The LA Lakers had the number one pick.
They took Earvin "Magic" Johnson of Michigan State.
The only question is, who will coach Johnson?
Jerry West announced he will not be returning next year.
- Coaching, for me, was a very difficult chore.
I'm an emotional person.
And sometimes I don't hide that very well.
I did not want to coach anymore.
And, to me, you should respect players,
and sometimes, then, I tried
to ask them to do things they couldn't do.
It was so frustrating for me.
NORM NIXON: All great players aren't great coaches.
They all have the tendency to judge you based
on what they did when they played.
ANNOUNCER: Los Angeles with the incomparable Jerry West.
He drives around Don Nelson and lays it in.
This time, Jerry does it all by himself.
STEVE SPRINGER: All you have to say
about Jerry West and how influential
he is in the NBA is, he's the logo.
The NBA logo. It's him.
NORM: Everybody doesn't have the same work ethic.
Everybody doesn't understand the game the same.
So I think coaching was very difficult for Jerry.
ANNOUNCER: Strong defense by Jerry West.
MICHAEL COOPER: He couldn't understand how people couldn't make
simple basketball plays.
"Michael, these motherfuckers can't even catch the ball."
JERRY WEST: The players-- I felt sorry for them,
having to play for me.
I did.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have ideas on who might be a replacement?
- Well, I have a theory that I will apply,
and that is that I want a coach
with a really heavy winning record behind him.
I received a phone call asking me to meet Victor Weiss,
the man who represented Jerry Tarkanian.
STEVE: Jerry Tarkanian was a very famous coach
at Long Beach State. He moved to Vegas to UNLV,
and he became a legend in that town.
Before anybody ever envisioned
there being pro teams in Vegas,
UNLV was the team,
and Jerry Tarkanian was the coach.
His representative was Vic Weiss.
He was a--a gambler in Vegas.
There were stories that he was connected to the mob.
Well, whatever.
BUSS: Victor Weiss and I had talked
for 45 minutes to an hour or so.
And then he left, and the next day or two days
or three days later, somewhere in there,
it was reported that he was missing.
STEVE: When the meeting broke up,
Vic Weiss was gonna go back to Tarkanian
and say, "This job's yours if you want it."
Unfortunately, they never spoke because Vic Weiss was murdered.
REPORTER: Homicide detectives found him dead.
He'd been shot in the head
and bundled into the trunk of a red Rolls Royce.
- All of a sudden, we had to have police protection
because they didn't know
if the hit was intended for my dad,
because he drove a similar car.
STEVE: I'm sure Jerry Buss was spooked by the murder,
but Jerry was always a cool customer.
- Well, I didn't know him, and I didn't even know
what he did other than just those 45 minutes.
I've heard all different kinds of rumors.
He was involved with some people
that he owed money to
and various things. I--I just have no idea.
JEANIE: My dad was like,
"Don't answer the phone. Don't open the door.
We have to now think that we're under attack."
This isn't what owning the Lakers was supposed to be.
- There's all kinds of stories that Vic Weiss was murdered
for something mob-related or gambling or whatever,
but it got into Tarkanian's head
that the mob didn't want Tarkanian to leave Vegas,
so he was really shaken by that.
- Were you ever offered officially
the head coaching job of the Los Angeles Lakers?
- Yeah, I was offered that, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you turn it down?
- Yes. INTERVIEWER: Why?
- Well, at the time, there was a lot of reasons,
but, uh, you know, at the time,
I still had a court case pending,
and I was very impressed with Jerry Buss,
but it was just-- it was--the timing was wrong.
It was the wrong time, and I just--
- I'm confident he would've been the coach
if that murder hadn't happened.
BUSS: Well, uh, I'm a little disappointed about it, Gil.
Uh, I met with Jerry a couple of days ago,
and I certainly understand the position he's in,
but, uh, we'll try to make some decisions
and see if we can't get a coach here very shortly.
CHUCK HEARN: We're just delighted
to, um, be here this morning.
The presentation we're going to make, I think,
is one that will not only arouse your interest,
your respect, today, but I think it'll continue
for many, many years with this man's ability.
Mr. Jack McKinney, new coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
JACK MCKINNEY: Very, very appreciative
of Mr. Buss for offering me
this job of coaching the Los Angeles Lakers.
I think it's a tremendous opportunity for me
because I'm coming
into what has the makings of an outstanding team.
And, eventually, we intend to win an NBA Championship.
JAMAAL: You have the new owner,
the new first draft choice,
and new coach,
which is kind of unusual, and it was inspiring.
Which you never quite know how good a player
will turn out to be on the next level.
So there's always questions going in.
ANNOUNCER: This is ABC Sports Beat.
The NBA faces a crucial season,
with a number of teams in serious financial trouble.
The NBA going for broke?
On ABC Sports Beat.
- There are serious problems that clearly make this
a critical year for the NBA.
Larry O'Brien is commissioner of the NBA.
He knows there are problems.
Collective losses in the league
went from $8 million to $13 million last year.
- The National Basketball Association
would be better off with 16 teams.
- If we crowd too many games into a week,
and I think the NBA fans see
some poor games, unfortunately.
BUSS: Their advertising, in most cases, is amateurish.
Uh, I think there is a great lack of effort
and ability to merchandise property.
JIM: My dad and I went to a game
at the very beginning, after he bought the team.
New York came in to play,
and they scored a bucket, and the place went nuts.
And he was like, "What in the world are you doing?
Why--this should be boos, not cheers."
He was livid about it.
JOHNNY: And I think that's what
really started the ball rolling.
MAGIC: When I first got to the Lakers,
we were on the third page.
We hadn't won a championship in a long time.
And so we were behind everybody.
USC football were king, Dodgers were king,
and so we had some work to do to convince
the fans of Los Angeles that they should support us.
CLAIRE: Prior to Jerry's coming
and Magic joining the team,
they almost never had more than 9,000 people at a game.
Jerry thought he could make it better.
He could make it profitable.
JIM: When I first started working at the Forum,
I was in ticket sales.
Ticket sales was basically your--
not your bottom level,
but that's--that's how everything works.
If you don't sell tickets, you don't have anything.
- We operated, you know, what my dad called
the boiler room, like a--a phone center.
- We called it the "dungeon" of the Forum
because it had no windows.
All our offices were in the dungeon.
JIM: We had, you know, maybe, I think,
four people working for us.
They would do cold calls,
I would be on the phone, doing the same thing.
"Hi, this is Jim Buss from the Lakers,
"and I was wondering
if you would be interested in buying tickets."
I don't remember my spiel, but I probably had one.
JEANIE: Selling tickets is the hardest thing to do,
so it became a competitive atmosphere.
JANIE: I was too young to work there.
I was still in high school.
But it was my dad's way to get little workers in his own,
you know, family business.
Who else could he trust except for his own children?
JEANIE: We would tease him like,
"Oh, yeah, you just have us working
because we're cheap."
But my dad wanted to see
who was interested
in being part of the family business.
- Oh, I loved it.
Absolutely loved being at the Forum
and working with the Lakers
and trying to achieve what my dad wanted, his goals.
- They wanted to please him.
You know, they had his attention.
They were part of what he was doing.
- The family business became an opportunity for us
to spend time with my father.
[pensive music]
CLAIRE: He started to think about a legacy,
what he could do for his children
that he hadn't done in the past,
because he hadn't spent a lot of time with them
in their growing-up years.
- There was one story that my dad would tell
that when I was young,
I ask him if he was Superman.
And because it's kind of like he drops by
when, you know, something is happening,
and that's kind of how my dad was.
♪ ♪
- He worked a lot. He wasn't home all the time.
- I remember asking a lot, "Where's Dad?"
You know? "Where's our dad?"
- He didn't go to the sporting events, you know,
or--or our little things that we had.
JOHNNY: Not once.
Not once for the baseball, not once for the basketball.
Not once for Boy Scouts.
JANIE: My high school graduation,
you know, my recital in fourth grade.
JIM: John was probably privy to a lot more than we were.
Jeanie and I were the middle children,
and it seemed like we were protected
from all the emotions that were going on in our family.
JOHNNY: I don't know if she ever talked
to any of the other siblings about it,
but at 12 years old, my mom did actually let me know
that, uh--"Your father and I are not together anymore."
JEANIE: They were trying to not portray
that they were separated.
JANIE: My mom did the best she could with chaos.
JOHNNY: She was very good at hiding it.
Just always trying to be there.
She would say, "Always love your father.
Always love your father.
And when he does come home, you know, make the best of it."
JEANIE: I think we all were giddy when he was home.
You know, we all, I guess vied for his attention
and, you know, we'd play Monopoly,
or we'd go get ice cream,
or we'd go get a toy at the dime store.
Um, it was always like,
"What are we gonna do as a family?"
- We were attracted to my father as this magnate.
JANIE: I learned to accept it,
but I'm sure it was hard on my dad
to see us all growing up and he's not there.
CLAIRE: Jerry was busy becoming a millionaire,
and they didn't see that much of him.
He wanted them involved with him.
I think he wanted to fill a role.
He wanted to be their father.
[upbeat music]
JOHNNY: Magic was put up initially
at one of our real estate holdings,
so we were the first to greet Magic into Los Angeles.
We would hang out with him. We would take him places
because he was new to Los Angeles.
We always loved going to Fatburger.
I didn't know much about college basketball,
so I didn't know popular he really was,
except, when we went to Fatburger,
everybody knew who he was already.
♪ ♪
MAGIC: When we signed the contract, they said,
"We got a plane ticket for you tomorrow.
"You got to fly out.
We want you to play next week in one game."
MICHAEL COOPER: First time I met Magic was in training camp.
And I'll never forget this.
He was like "You know what team means?"
I said "Yeah, that's why everybody is here, we're all--"
He said "Team means, 'Together Everyone Achieves More.'"
That's when I knew that this guy had
something special about him
because it wasn't just about him.
It was about the team.
MAGIC: I practiced with the team for two days.
Now it's time to perform.
Now it's time to play.
JAMAAL: I figured "Well, I'm gonna go ahead
and say hello to him." I walk up,
and, well, I went out there, and maybe a few thousand
other people were out there.
It was bedlam. It was crazy.
MICHAEL: We had been playing there several, several games,
and all those games were only averaging
about maybe 500 people, 600 people.
This particular game, they had opened up both floors,
opened up both sides of the gym,
and it was probably about 2,000 people in there.
MAGIC: This PR guy for the Lakers come in.
He's telling me, you know,
"There's hundreds and hundreds of people out there!"
And I said, "In the gym?"
You know? I was sitting up here.
You know, I'm 19, so I don't know what's happening.
He said, "Yes, and they've come to see you."
So, oh, man.
Once he said that, I just started shaking.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
BUSS: Magic is truly magic.
He's going to pack them in wherever he goes.
But perhaps the best part about him is,
every time he's in an arena,
everyone has a smile on their face.
It's contagious.
He sets it off, and it spreads around the crowd.
So Magic is going to be a very, very exciting player
for us here in Los Angeles.
- Especially if the fans be as beautiful as they were tonight.
INTERVIEWER: The fans are gonna be here?
FANS: Yeah!
- To have a sold-out crowd for summer league games,
and I said "Man, if this is how it's gonna be when I come play
for the Lakers, I'm gonna love this."
JEANIE: A few days later, the general manager
brought him over to my dad's house,
where I happened to be staying,
and the doorbell rings... [doorbell rings]
And here's Magic.
I was so overwhelmed opening that door
and seeing this smile.
His teeth were like stars.
MAGIC: She was like, "Oh, you're gonna have a great time.
"You're going to be with the Lakers for a long time.
You and I together."
I said "No, I'm going to play my five years,
and I'm going back home to play for the Pistons."
She said, "What?"
- I went "Okay, I'll be right back."
And I ran upstairs. I'm like, "Dad,
"you won't believe--you won't believe what he just said.
He said he's going to play for the Detroit Pistons."
And my dad didn't miss a beat. He just looked at me,
and he said, "Jeanie, as soon as he puts on a Laker jersey
"and walks out on the floor at the Forum,
he's never going to leave."
[upbeat music]
ANNOUNCER: Wilson on the inbound to Nixon,
and he gives it off outside to Spencer Haywood.
Magic Johnson with the ball.
The defensive assignment
drawn initially against Johnson by Theo
and the Magic man hits his first shot.
PAT RILEY: I was in the booth
as a broadcaster with Chick at the time.
- He had three fouls early, so Adrian Daly
took him to the laundry. Parrish had 12--
- He took his shorts to the laundry?
- Took his shorts to the laundry.
Magic was so unique and out of the box, he just took over.
See us on the drive, rejected cleanly
by Abdul-Jabbar.
Johnson leads the Laker break, Nixon off the will.
- With that basketball, he was simply just a maestro.
ANNOUNCER: You look at Magic Johnson, you must remember one thing,
The man is 6'8", but he moves like a little man.
- I would start looking sooner than I would with most guards
because if you were open, he would get to the ball.
ANNOUNCER: One open straight to 96 with 15 seconds.
Johnson to Cooper and another reverse layup!
MAGIC: When I got to this town,
they thought that Kareem and I couldn't co-exist.
STEVE: When I first started covering the Lakers
in 1979 and '80,
I flew out on the plane, I went on the team bus,
and so that gave me incredible access to the team.
And when Magic came along, Kareem was resentful,
like "This snot-nosed kid.
"Everybody loves him, everybody hugs him,
"everybody praises him, and what about me?
I'm the star of the team." And really, it bothered him.
- There were some personality differences.
Kareem is one way, and Magic is another way.
STEVE: They lived different lives.
Kareem was more than a basketball player.
He was an activist.
He was part of that group of African-American athletes
who got together to talk about social justice
in the late '60s.
BUSS: And you had Earvin,
who was effervescent personality.
You know, every day was bigger than yesterday.
JAMAAL: Kareem preferred jazz, and Magic liked,
I don't know what, R&B or soul music.
STEVE: I'm imagining they didn't spend
a lot of time bar-hopping together.
MAGIC: There was a lot of chatter out there
that I wanted to make sure that I squashed,
so the first thing I did was say,
"Hey, man, where do you like the ball?"
KAREEM: I said "Look, Earvin, see what side the guy is on.
Just put it to my other hand."
- "No problem."
ANNOUNCER: Magic waiting, shot clock down at seven,
six, five, four, three--
MAGIC: "What else you like?" "I don't like it low.
I don't want to be bending down."
"You got it."
ANNOUNCER: Handing it off to Magic Johnson,
cross court, looks good, Kareem!
- I wanted him to know that, "Listen, I'm not coming here,
"trying to take over this team,
"because this is your team, Kareem.
"I just want to play my role and fit in,
and the only thing I want to do is win."
REPORTER: It was not business as usual
this morning at the Forum.
The Lakers played Denver tonight
only because it's on the schedule.
At this moment, the concern of the team centers
around the health and well-being
of Jack McKinney.
JAMAAL: When I first heard, I didn't know how bad,
but the way I heard it, it sounded bad, you know?
Like, people were really concerned.
It wasn't just a bicycle accident.
But no one was talking much about the extent of it,
when he would come back.
REPORTER: The Lakers will need representation
on the bench tonight and will have it
in the person of assisting coach Paul Westhead.
PAUL WESTHEAD: Jack McKinney was the guy
who brought me out here,
and we were friends, so I went down to the hospital,
and they said they were going to run some tests on him
and, you know, they wouldn't know
for at least a day or two,
you know, the depth of his injury.
So the next day,
I went to the shoot around, like, 10:00 in the morning.
Back then, in the NBA, there was only one assistant.
If I don't go, there isn't a shoot around.
It was my first season in the NBA.
Had nine years of head coaching
at LaSalle College,
but I had no experience
in coaching professional players
and what all that meant.
And I don't have an assistant coach.
The only person that I know in the NBA is Pat Riley.
He had been in the NBA as a player,
hadn't ever coached anybody.
- I learned from my pro coaches,
college coaches, and high school coaches,
and I just had a way about Xs and Os
that I knew what they were talking about
and where to go and how they moved down the court.
- I went to Jerry Buss, and I said "I think I'd like
to offer Pat Riley the job to be the assistant."
And he, in his classic way, said,
"Well, why don't we think it over?"
When Jerry Buss says to you "think it over," that means,
"I don't think it's a very good idea,
but I don't want to tell you that."
But a week or two went by,
and finally, he said "Okay, if that's what you want."
He made it very clear, "If that's what you want."
Jack McKinney was not physically fit to return,
so I smartly just followed his offensive scheme.
MAGIC: Paul Westhead inherited what Coach McKinney
had already put in place.
He had the ball moving
and the players moving at the same time,
so you couldn't stop us. It was a beautiful offense.
And Westhead did a wonderful job
of maintaining that.
ANNOUNCER: 10 seconds to go till half-time, 60 to 42.
Son's trying it. Lakers from 20 feet, no good,
and it's half-time at the Forum.
We'll be right back.
ROB LOWE: I went to one Laker game
before Magic showed up,
and there was no sense of occasion.
I don't think there even was a half-time show.
Half-time was when you went and got a hot dog.
Dr. Buss created a sense of occasion.
JEANIE: You know, my dad-- when he bought the team,
he wanted to create the atmosphere that he liked.
"If I like it, then other people must like it too."
REPORTER: There he is, his first shot as an owner.
You think he likes it?
JEANIE: One of the places he used to like to go
was in Santa Monica.
EMCEE: Welcome to Live at the Horn,
right here at the Horn,
Los Angeles' oldest cabaret and nightclub.
JEANIE: They would put on a show,
and they would turn down the lights,
and they'd say, "It's showtime."
So that's what he wanted to create.
He wanted all the focus on the show
while it was happening.
So it became "Showtime."
[strutting music]
♪ ♪
SINGER: ♪ I said upside down you turn me ♪
ANNOUNCER: You are going to see the game's finals,
so sit back and relax. It's showtime.
MAGIC: On the court, we were creating
the movement of showtime.
And then guess what happened.
Dr. Buss said, "Let me start something sexy and hot."
And he came up with the Laker Girls.
- My dad came up with the idea for the Laker Girls
because he was a big college football fan.
ANNOUNCER: He gets the pass along
just as he is hit in the end zone.
JEANIE: When the game was going on,
the men got the center stage.
When they took a break,
now let women have the center stage.
The Lakers were the first team in the NBA
to have dancers perform.
ROB: The Laker Girls were extraordinary.
I mean, to be a single guy in LA in those days,
a lot of your attention
was not on the actual game of basketball.
JOHN SALLEY: I remember one time, I got fined $50.
I was on the Detroit Pistons, and I'm bent over
like I'm looking into the huddle
while I'm looking up at the Laker Girls.
And then they were like "Sal?" and I looked up,
and everybody was staring at me.
Coach was like, "That's $50."
- My dad wanted to do entertainment.
He wanted to have the spectacle.
He wanted the three-ring circus that worked.
- He made it fun.
And of course we became a very successful team.
NORM: Sexy entertainment and our style of play--
it goes together.
When you put that together, it's just exploding.
CLAIRE: Jerry changed everything.
Floor seats were $10.50.
And he said to me, "I think we ought to raise it."
We raised it to $65.00.
JEANIE: Other owners around the league
thought for sure we would lose fans.
JIM GOLDSTEIN: I have attended over 5,000 NBA games.
So Dr. Buss probably cost me
millions of dollars.
He was the first owner
to realize he could raise the prices 400%,
and people as crazy as me would still buy the tickets.
LOU ADLER: In '72, Jack Nicholson and I
started going to Laker games.
We were sitting way up at the top,
and then a couple of hit albums,
a couple of hit movies, we kept moving down,
and all of a sudden, we found ourselves on the floor.
We were sitting court-side in '79,
when he raised the price,
but don't forget, he gave us the Laker Girls.
So that sort of compensated.
- My dad said "Okay, I'll charge more down here
"and charge less up here
so that everybody could enjoy showtime."
CLAIRE: It was so thrilling, and so exciting.
We sold out.
ROB: Jerry Buss was the director,
Magic's the star,
the movie is Showtime, and it was a huge hit.
EDDIE DOUCETTE: You have got to be very excited
with the way your club has played.
You like excitement,
you've got an exciting atmosphere
for basketball here,
and your Lakers are certainly an exciting team.
- Well, I think, first and foremost, you know,
all of these things have to be entertainment, Eddie.
And, uh, I'm very pleased
because obviously, we have a packed house, and the fact
that we're on television, uh, pleases me to no end.
MAGIC: Dr. Buss always thought outside the box.
See, all the owners were like this.
"Okay, you do it like this, you wear a tie."
Dr. Buss said, "I'm not wearing a tie."
Everybody say, "You got to wear a suit."
Dr. Buss said, "I'm wearing blue jeans."
"Well, you got to date somebody your age."
"I'm dating somebody who's 20."
Dr. Buss was like,
"I don't care what you guys do. This is who I am."
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
JEANIE: My parents were separated,
so my dad soaked up
every minute of the life he had.
He just wanted to enjoy it and use whatever time he had
to, you know, make his mark.
♪ ♪
MAGIC: Dr. Buss and I had the same personality.
He loved people. I loved people.
He loved to talk. I loved to talk.
And he saw this innocent kid,
and he saw that I didn't have anybody out here.
And I think that he looked up and said,
"Hey, I'm gonna play a role,
if he wants me to play a role, in his life."
And I wanted him to play a role.
ANNOUNCER: First up,
offensive possession of the ball, game--
MAGIC: We would meet every Saturday at his house,
have breakfast,
go to a USC football game together.
He took me to the race track.
I didn't know nothing about horse racing or any of that.
ANNOUNCER: Eighth of a mile to go,
There's four horses battling for the lead--
- He loved Italian food. I loved Italian food,
so we'd meet at his favorite Italian restaurant
all the time.
He took me to the Playboy mansion that first time,
and I was like a kid in a candy store,
like "Ah."
He said "Calm down, Earvin."
He might've been older than me,
but he was young at heart.
Always, always.
He actually became like a second father to me.
- I don't know that my dad ever treated him like a son.
You know, that's different,
and I know that from first-hand.
But the amount of women that would come up to them,
it was like Elvis Presley or the Beatles
had walked into the room.
Was I a little jealous of that? Maybe.
- When we went to the Playboy mansion,
we would sit back,
and he was just studying "Which one do I want?"
You know?
And then it was the chase to get her, right?
And he would always end up with the one he wanted.
SINGER: ♪ Please take me home ♪
♪ He wears the finest clothes ♪
♪ The best designers heaven knows ♪
JEANIE: It's like dating on hyper speed,
and a lot of the girls were modeling,
so they'd always make sure that he got pictures,
and so he started keeping a book.
BUSS: Most of the girls that you would date in Los Angeles
typically want to be either a model or an actress.
And if you go out with them, of course, they have
those 8-by-10 glossies they send out all the time.
And so I just thought, "Wouldn't it be nice
to memorialize each one of the dates with a picture?"
REPORTER: He's a very almost shy man,
which surprised me.
He's very reticent about--he lives
this flamboyant lifestyle with all this stuff around him,
including the models and the girlfriends and so on,
and the big, flashy car,
but I found him surprisingly reserved
in his personal demeanor and so on.
JANIE: I learned really quick about the playboy lifestyle,
but it didn't change the way I felt about my father.
JEANIE: He enjoyed the company of attractive women,
and I think a lot of women fell in love with him.
But as time went on, then, you know,
there'd be a new girl and then another new girl.
- I don't necessarily appreciate the collectibles
in his gallery of beauty.
You know, he does not look at women as some--
as Greek statues as he collects them.
It's--
- No, and I raised that with him, as a matter of fact.
I said-- one of the things I asked him,
I said, "Would you want your daughter"--
who I think was about 20, I think--
"to date somebody like you?"
And he said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I think I would."
He said "Because, for instance,
"I'm interested in having my daughter
"come up in the organization as an executive,
"the kind of Christy Hefner- Hugh Hefner split
"that you see in Playboy magazine exists there."
And he's very close to Hugh Hefner, it turns out,
and I get the impression his daughter
is very much like Christy Hefner,
that she's interested in the business side,
what's going on in the Jerry Buss organization.
- I mean, her IQ is higher than 10.
- Well, the generations, there is a big split.
22 past the hour now. This is Today on NBC.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
ANNOUNCER: The Los Angeles Lakers are the new champions
of the western conference,
as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pours in 38 points and now--
REPORTER: Magic, get over here.
Hey, man, congratulations.
MAGIC: Thank you.
- You seem like you're a little bit out of breath.
- I am. I'm so happy, know?
And elated that I get a chance to play for the championship.
It's beautiful.
- Now you got Philadelphia and Dr. J.
Do you guard him on that series?
- Yeah, I'll be guarding Julius.
- Better go get your rest, huh?
- Well, yeah, I'll get my rest, but I'm not gonna worry
about it just yet. I'm gonna savor this.
- Are you ready for Dr. J?
- Yeah, I'm ready for Dr. J, but hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.
- All right. All right, great, good luck.
We'll see you Sunday.
NORM: We knew we had a special team.
We didn't know if we was going to win a championship,
but we knew we had a great shot.
- We were on a roll. We were together.
We knew that we can win, but when you play
Julius Erving and company,
you know you're in for trouble.
REPORTER: They call him the Doctor, Dr. J,
Julius Erving, who always surprised
and delighted his fans
with his flashy and unpredictable moves
on the way to the basket.
Now the Doctor operates out of Philadelphia
as the floor leader and captain of the Sixers.
JULIUS ERVING: When we got to the matchup,
we knew where the positions were where we had an advantage
and where we didn't have an advantage.
And we didn't have an advantage in the center position.
I mean, Kareem was the force to be reckoned with,
and, you know,
he's the guy who I pick as the greatest of all time.
- I'm looking for us to win.
I have a lot of confidence we can beat the 76ers,
but all of that will not mean anything if we don't go out
and put it into real terms on the court.
REPORTER: Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the NBA
World Championship Series.
REPORTER: It's been eight seasons
since the NBA Championship
has been a part of the LA sports scene.
Remember, it was back in 1972
when the Lakers beat the Nicks for the title.
Well, today, the Lakers have started out
with every intention
of winning that championship again.
ANNOUNCER: Up and three and it will be underway.
Controlled by Dawkins here. Great point.
STEVE: That series was evenly matched all the way down.
It was a seesaw, two teams going back and forth,
had no idea who was going to win this thing.
Going into game five, they were tied 2-2,
and could've gone either way.
ANNOUNCER: Mike and Jim Caper is the alternate,
he'll be over at the scores table,
and here is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
and Caldwell Jones.
[dramatic music]
Into Kareem, James for shot.
ANNOUNCER: 42.
ANNOUNCER: Skyhook, Kareem. Take that.
Julius matched against Cooper.
Kareem smooth with a jump shot to the left.
Whoa.
Everybody thought he was going left.
Kareem's hurt.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is injured.
There's no question about it.
KAREEM: You know when you sprain your ankle.
It's not like something you find out a day or two later.
I went in to the locker room, and they said,
"You sprained it pretty bad."
MAGIC: When you lose somebody like Kareem
in a pivotal game five, you're devastated.
He was the most valuable player
in the league that year,
and he was dominating the series.
- I looked at centers.
I'm like, "We got an advantage here."
But my coaches-- they always taught me,
"You can't celebrate
till the game's over and you got the W."
- And mid-fourth quarter, here comes Kareem back.
ANNOUNCER: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is now
just returning for the final period.
KAREEM: Oh, I ignored the pain.
And I just focused on getting the job done.
- I've been in that situation, gone in the locker room,
had a lip sewn up, had my eye sewn up,
and come back out and--you know,
we were from the generation of, "If you don't go out there
and play, somebody's gonna take your fucking job."
You know? So we're from that generation.
ANNOUNCER: They got to be thinking,
"Oh my, here he is. He's back."
- We were all happy when we came back, trust me.
ANNOUNCER: Kareem comes in on Caldwell.
Sky--
- I knew I could still beat Darryl Dawkins
and Caldwell Jones with a sprained ankle.
ANNOUNCER: Magic alley-oop to Kareem.
- He had the winning play as well.
ANNOUNCER: Dawkins will front Kareem,
lobbed to Kareem in behind.
- He dunked it and got fouled at the same time,
and we knew the game was over.
ANNOUNCER: And Los Angeles will take a 3-2 lead
in this NBA World Championship Series.
MICHAEL: That night, the doctor was in there,
and we all kind of, like, hung around
because we wanted to get the results.
KAREEM: I looked at my foot, and it was hard to tell
if it was my foot or an elephant foot.
I was hoping I could go home, two days of treatment,
and maybe I could be ready for game seven.
JAMAAL: The next day, we're heading back to Philly,
and he doesn't show up to the airport.
Now we know it's bad.
MICHAEL: At that time, we had to fly commercial.
And I'll never forget this.
We were all sitting in the airport,
and all of a sudden, we hear music.
[smooth '70s music]
Frankie Beverly,
"That's the Golden Time of Day."
♪ ♪
Magic comes onto the plane,
and he has this boombox on his shoulder.
- Walking down in the airport, singing loud.
MAGIC: I get on the plane,
and I wanted to build everybody's confidence up.
- He asks everybody--he goes, "What's wrong with y'all?"
And everybody's like "Ugh."
And he says "Have no fear,
motherfuckin' Earvin 'Magic' Johnson is here."
ANNOUNCER: You are looking live at the sold-out crowd
at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
It is game six, the 76ers and the Lakers.
REPORTER: Magic, without the big fella here,
you're gonna have to really go to the board.
You had 15 in the last game.
- Yeah, I'm gonna have to really take up
a lot of slack that--
without him in the middle, it's gonna be a real job
for me, Jim Chones, and Jamaal Wilkes.
REPORTER: How about guarding Julius--
KAREEM: I wanted to go to the game.
You know, I wanted to be there.
I was just hoping that,
you know, they could have a decent game, you know?
Earn respect.
- He's not there.
You know, suddenly, it's a team we've never seen before.
ANNOUNCER: Wilkes will take a six shot outside on its way.
Jamal Wilkes now with 28 points for the Lakers.
- Without Kareem, we're gonna have to play really fast,
we're gonna have to rebound really well,
and we're gonna have to play good defense.
All of us gonna have to contribute.
ANNOUNCER: Wilkes sends it back, Nixon.
JAMAAL: So what's gonna get us the ring?
That's sticking together.
ANNOUNCER: And Jamal Wilkes at the buzzer.
On the interception on the lazy pass
and there's that rookie again.
Magic dishes Wilkes this time.
- Everybody stepped up in that sixth game.
As amazing as Magic was, he couldn't have done it alone.
ANNOUNCER: Magic will come down the baseline
and Dawkins' tiny mops.
ANNOUNCER: That wasn't a brick.
ANNOUNCER: Great pass inside to Cooper with Magic Johnson.
Here comes the 20-year-old rookie down the middle.
Dawkins went to him and scored and sent him into the line.
There it is!
It's over and the most valuable player
is Magic Johnson,
who leads the Los Angeles Lakers
to the World Championship
without Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers--
- All of a sudden, I had three months to heal.
- Kareem was there with us. He got us there.
Brought us to that point.
- When you win something like that,
you feel that, all of a sudden,
your life has changed.
I thought this can happen over and over and over again.
Why not?
- This is your first year, and you're here.
How many of these would you like to get under your belt?
- About 20.
- I want to present the world trophy to the owner
of the Los Angeles Lakers,
the new world champions of basketball,
and I'm proud to do it.
And here you go, Jerry Buss, it's yours.
And a permanent. You keep it.
[onlookers cheering and shouting]
- I've never had a group of men like this team
do so much minute by minute, week by week, month by month.
I think we played 108 games,
and they've given everything they had,
and this is the end result. Thank you, guys.
- Coach Westhead. - Everybody put your hand right here.
- Paul, come here. It was indeed--
STEVE: What Jerry Buss did in his first year
owning the Lakers is incredible.
I can't think of any other owner
who's made such an impact on the NBA so fast.
I mean, after Laker Girls came along,
there were dancing girls all over the league,
and all of a sudden,
there was entertainment all through the league.
I mean, they're all now copying him.
And he had all this in one season.
MAGIC: What we both wanted as rookies,
it was the proudest moment for both of us, you know?
We had our moment back at the hotel.
"Can you believe this?
"You're a rookie, I'm a rookie,
and we won the NBA Championship!"
And you got jeans on, no socks.
INTERVIEWER: When they won, the Lakers won,
at the awarding of the championship
and all that-- tell me about that high
and what's coming down was like.
- The last three or four weeks of the season
were exhausting for me,
and I looked forward to taking a couple of weeks off,
thinking I would relax
and come back to work fresh as a daisy,
but it doesn't work out that way.
You're on such a high and such an intensity
during that period of time,
it takes maybe two, two and a half months
before you ever begin to be able to normal again.
JEANIE: During that time,
my parents went through a divorce,
which is a humbling experience for anybody.
JANIE: I remember the day my mom said,
"We're signing divorce papers."
JIM: I knew there was, you know,
some negative emotions for her
and that she was upset,
but she covered up a lot.
- She did the best she could to--to talk to me about it,
but I didn't quite know how to feel about it.
JEANIE: My dad wanted my mom to be like a trophy wife,
but my mom was more introverted.
Like, that was not her comfort zone,
to get dressed up, to be on his arm.
That wasn't something that she was comfortable with.
And, you know, she wanted him to be home all the time.
INTERVIEWER: One newspaper account says you're very fast.
Fast women, fast cars, fast business deals.
- Well, I like fast cars. They're just beautiful.
I'm single, and therefore, I tend to go discoing
as much as anybody, I guess.
Fast business deals?
Sometimes deals have to done quickly
in order to be consummated,
but I don't necessarily walk into a deal
to enjoy the speed with which it's executed.
I feel I'm as cautious as anyone else.
But I'm willing to take a gamble,
if the condition arises.
[dramatic music]
- Man to man, Don't foul.
They've only got three seconds.
They have to have a three-point shot, so--
ANNOUNCER: No, he just said don't foul.
89-86.
Kareem will try to get as much distance on this
as he can without starting the clock.
Jamal Wilkes, three pointer.
And we are going to have new world champions
this year in the NBA.
The Houston Rockets have won it.
JEANIE: The 1980-'81 season was a huge letdown.
That year, Magic got hurt,
so we never really got back into form.
And going into the next season, we started off a little shaky.
ANNOUNCER: And we're under way.
I hope you enjoy this game
and the NBA campaign on CBS.
And the Lakers control.
Magic Johnson outside.
MICHAEL: If you had just won a championship, as a coach,
you don't want to change things drastically.
But the beginning of that season was different
because Coach Westhead started seeing us differently.
ANNOUNCER: Pat Riley and Paul Westhead
on the Laker bench.
- Paul put in this new system, and the system basically was,
he was running the show, not Magic Johnson,
and nobody hated him more than Magic,
but none of the players liked him.
MAGIC: He wanted to become his own coach and his own man,
with his own offense.
And, um, it just didn't work for us.
- Paul was taking the team in a direction
I didn't want to go.
He was slowing down the offense,
and they were becoming so patterned
that a lot of the excitement was beginning to disappear.
And I began to really question
whether or not we were being well-coached.
PAUL: This is now demanding,
this is hard, this is rigorous,
this is pushing the envelope every day in practice.
I didn't realize at the time
that the players were ultimately going to resist.
- The basketball IQ of our team was very high.
You didn't have to kind of hold our hands.
We knew how to read plays. We could adjust on the spot.
If someone takes those instincts away from you,
I mean, that's a coach that's just trying to over-coach you.
KAREEM: It wasn't working.
Basketball is nothing if not a game of spontaneity.
JAMAAL: You know, it was kind of like,
"What's he thinking about?"
You know? "What's going on here?"
- See, as an athlete, you know if the coach knows his stuff.
He didn't know his stuff. Just didn't know it.
And it's okay.
- Once you begin to lose your players, you're toast.
- I wanted Jerry West to step in and be the coach.
WEST: I was going through
a very difficult time in my life.
I was going through a divorce. I said, "Jerry,
"this would be the worst thing that could ever happen.
The worst thing."
- And I said "Okay, then I'll give it one week
in order to get a new coach."
And then on either Wednesday or Thursday, Magic made
his famous statement, which hit all the newspapers.
STEVE: We go in the locker room, and we go up to Earvin.
You know, usual "So how'd it go tonight?"
or "you got 21 points," whatever it was he said,
and he stands up like a politician
and he says, "I'm not having any fun.
I want to be traded." Out of nowhere.
- We went to talk to him about the game,
and he said, "I got to go.
"Paul and I don't see eye to eye.
"I'd like to be traded.
"I'm going to talk to Dr. Buss today.
"I'd like to go to New York, Chicago.
"It's just, Paul and I don't see eye and eye,
"and I'm not having fun anymore,
and I haven't had fun all season."
- That's the first emotional outburst
that we have seen from Magic, who is only 22 years of age.
It was in very bad taste.
KAREEM: It was like a bolt from the blue, all right?
I was sitting in the locker room in Salt Lake,
and the press, all of a sudden,
were all around my neck, telling me
exactly what Magic had said.
And, uh, I had no inkling of it.
MAGIC: It was just the end for me.
I just couldn't take it no more.
REPORTER: Going the wrong way.
They're going the wrong way.
PERSON: Must've made a run, John.
♪ ♪
REPORTER: Everybody ready?
Everybody ready? Everybody ready?
REPORTER: Now, Magic, of course, everybody wants to know,
do you still feel the same way this morning
as you did last night?
- Well, really, I have no comment right now
until after I meet with Dr. Buss.
And, you know, you can have all the questions you want, okay?
REPORTER: What's the problem, Magic?
- No questions right now, really.
I don't have no answers until after I meet with him.
Thank you.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪