Who was better: Magic Johnson or Larry Bird?
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Monday 6/1/26
It's not exactly a new topic for debate, but I saw where someone asked who was better, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and I gave this some thought anew. I'm not sure you could have two players who'd split the vote as it were like these two. There was a time, I'd say, when Johnson had the slight nod. That has shifted in recent years, on account of the internet and how people allow highlights packages to do their thinking, as such, for them.
No one--not even Michael Jordan--may have more pleasing-to-the-eye highlights than Larry Bird. A lot of basketball highlights look the same, as if there is only so much variety to be had in being great at the game. A fade away jumper is a fade away jumper, and, after enough exposure, a dunk is a dunk. The Julius Irving dunk where he makes the steal and cuts in from the wing and cradles the ball looks unique and is a thing of a unique physically poetry, so that dunk stands out, but the rest usually blend together regardless of the player and the extent of his abilities.
But Bird's highlights look different by quite a bit. To the naked eye, you'd think he was doing something no one else before him or since was--that is, if you focus on the right plays. As I said in a radio interview once, as a passer he had a very percussive relationship with the ball. Lots of touch passes where he'd bat the ball along in a given direction, sort of pop it on its way to where he wanted it to go.
At the same time, I think Bird has become underrated. A strange case of both. He didn't have the longevity on account of hurting his back. Larry Bird comes into the NBA and finishes fourth in MVP voting after his rookie season. Then he’s second three years in a row. Then he wins it three years in a row. Then he’s third. Then he’s second. Then he’s hurt.
That Bird, in my estimation, was one of the seven or eight best players ever. In his first few seasons, he was a very good defender (he actually made the All-Defensive second team three times, which few people seem to have any inkling about), something Magic Johnson never was. Johnson also won three MVPs, but it was as if he had to wait until Bird's MVP-winning period had come to a close before he could cop the honor. Then again, Michael Jordan had started doing his thing by then.
One could say that Johnson had the better career. He won five championships to Bird's three. He also beat Bird's teams twice in the Finals. Then again, the 1985-86 Boston Celtics could really be the best team in the sport's history (and I believe they would have handled the Lakers that year if the Lakers hadn't been upended by a Houston Rockets team that was a lot better than they've been given credit for ever since, in part, I suspect, because people want to view them as this fluke underdog team that denied everyone this amazing Finals, like the only way LA could have failed to get there was because of a fluke-y upset). They have a special, magical reputation, as they should. That counts for something extra.
The 1983-84 Finals may have been the best in the sport's history. The drama was at an all-time high, anyway, as well as the intensity. Looking back, I am a tiny bit surprised that the Celtics won. They had to rely on that Celtics generational DNA to get it done--the Red Auerbach idea of finding a way whatever that way has to be, as the 1968-69 Celtics did in Bill Russell's last year after they'd fallen behind 2-0 in the Finals, and then 3-2, and needing to win Game 7 on the road, against the Lakers.
That was real gut-check stuff. Same as what you saw in 1976. This kind of duty-bound moxie was what defined the Celtics in the 1960s and 1970s and into the Bird years, with the last flash coming against the Detroit Pistons in the 1987-88 Eastern Conference Finals and the famous "Bird stole the ball!" play as called by Johnny Most. Bird wasn't the defender he had been by then, but he rose to the moment. The Lakers were too much in the Finals, though.
Did the Bird Celtics not win as much as they should have? They didn't go back-to-back. But it was tough back then. Lots of good teams, lots of physicality. Less gimmicky basketball. Purer basketball. Look at those Sixers teams. Moses Malone was a beast. Perhaps the most underrated all-timer of a basketball player there is. They got the lone title. And that's with Dr. J, too. Granted, he'd been around for a while, but he still brought it.
The Orr-Esposito Bruins underachieved badly. Only two Cups? With the second greatest player in the sport's history and one of its best scorers in Espo? Wasn't enough. You had other Hall of Famers and additional really strong players like a Derek Sanderson. But I think the Bird Celtics won as many championships as they should have, which means Bird did, too.
You could assert that Johnson was a better passer, but I'm not sure about that either. He got more assists, but he was a point guard. He was supposed to get more assists. It's a case of division of duties. The same as Bird was supposed to score more. But when Bird passed? He may have been the best I ever saw at it.
Johnson isn't brought up as often as he should be when people talk about the best. Jordan, LeBron James, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I don't really think that Kobe Bryant belongs in this group. He could pull his own team down some.
My sense is that either player wouldn't have traded his career for the other's. This is almost a perfect case of which you prefer rather than which was better. I'd pick Bird all the same, though. He was also an excellent rebounder. His game was so complete. I also think he was more assassin-y. More of a cut-your-heart-out-and-eat-it guy than Johnson was.
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