Earvin "Magic" Johnson

Talent is never enough. With a few exceptions, the best players are the hardest workers.

Profile / Biography

Earvin "Magic" Johnson is one of the few athletes who is truly unique, changing the way basketball is played with his singular skills. A native of East Lansing, Michigan, he was destined for greatness from the day he stepped onto the basketball court at Lansing Everett High School until he retired from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Johnson accomplished virtually everything a player could dream of during his 13-year NBA career, all of which was spent with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was a member of five championship teams. He won the Most Valuable Player Award and the Finals MVP Award three times each.

Further, he was a 12-time All-Star and a nine-time member of the All-NBA First Team. He surpassed Robertson's career, a mark he later relinquished to John Stockton. He won a gold medal with the original Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

His all-around play inspired the addition of the term "triple-double" to basketball's lexicon.

If there was one aspect of Johnson's game that awed people the most, it was his brilliant passing skills. He dazzled fans and dumbfounded opponents with no-look passes off the fastbreak, pinpoint alley-oops from half court, spinning feeds and overhand bullets under the basket through triple teams.

When defenders expected him to pass, he shot. When they expected him to shoot, he passed.

In 1996-97, Johnson was selected to the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. In 2002, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.