Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson will be giving his insight, analysis and perspective on the better-late-than-never new season of pro-basketball beginning on Christmas Day. The basketball legend just expanded his role on ESPN and ABC and will now be reporting from Los Angeles across the street from the Staples Center, home of the Lakers & Clippers.
How important it is for this season to start and just get back to games for the NBA after all of the ugliness in the off‑season, and the lockout?
“Well, I think it’s very important. I’m excited that it’s going to happen on the best day of the year, really, Christmas Day. When you think about it, there’s going to be five exciting games starting with, of course, Boston and the Knicks.
You have a team in the Knicks now who are a lot better, especially with Tyson Chandler coming over. I think that once Baron Davis gets healthy they’re going to cause some real problems in the East. Then, when you think about the World Champion Dallas Mavericks playing Miami again, I think it’s going to be exciting, because Miami has got a lot to prove. I watched Miami and Orlando in their preseason game on Sunday, and I did see LeBron James going to the post a couple of times. So you can see he’s been working on his game.
They’ve got a lot to prove to themselves as well as to the league, and they’re an exciting team. So it’s going to be fun to see what Miami does in terms of coming back after a devastating loss in the championship to the Dallas Mavs. Then the Mavs, man, when you think about the world champions making so many big changes, I mean, Tyson Chandler was the anchor of their defense, and now he’s gone to the Knicks.”
What do you think the keys are for the Knicks to – they’ve got a lot of potential to have it all work out for them this year.
“I think number one, the biggest challenge for the Knicks is how do they come together? How do they really come together and really play well as a team? We saw what happened to the Heat early on last season. Remember, they were not playing well together. Then they finally caught fire mid‑season and then on to the playoffs.
But if you’re not in sync with one another, they’re going to struggle early on. So I think the fans have to be patient. Because when you think about bringing in a key player like Tyson Chandler, you’re going to now have to…first of all, you have two superstars who are not used to working with each other already, and that’s Carmelo and Stoudemire.
So Amare and Carmelo, they’re not even used to working with each other. Now you throw in Tyson, and it’s going to take a while for them to understand how to play with each other. Where does that guy like to shoot from? Where am I supposed to be on the offense and what am I supposed to do?
Fans got to be patient, the coaches got to be patient, and number one, the players got to be patient. If they don’t get off to an early good start, they can’t worry about it. Just stick with it. Stick with the game plan. Stick with understanding how are we going to work with one another?
I believe once they get that down, they’re going to be battling right there with Chicago and Miami for the Eastern Conference Championship. They can really cause a lot of problems because their length, oh, my goodness. They’re long. Tyson can block shots. He can run on the break. He causes so many problems for opponents because he plays hard on both ends of the court, and that’s going to really free up Carmelo and Amare a lot more. Because Amare, remember last year, he was trying to play center or the best forward, and that’s really not his forte.
But that is definitely Tyson Chandler’s forte…the defensive end. So now that can relieve Amare. He doesn’t have to play that best player or that post player, and he can conserve some of that energy on the defensive end and let Tyson take that.”
I hope the Knicks read my column.