Magic Johnson told Dwight Howard he could never play in the NBA

[PleezeBehave]

Kinda funny/ironic that Dwight ended up with Orlando, as a big reminder to Magic Johnson, sporting that MAGIC logo on his jersey every game.

[Pointguard]

Kinda funny/ironic that Dwight ended up with Orlando, as a big reminder to Magic Johnson, sporting that MAGIC logo on his jersey every game.

He'll probably use that excuse as a reason for not resigning.

[one2]

Didn't Dwight grow 10 inches in less than 3 years or something? Of course he will be skinny. in 10th grade many teens are skinny. Dumb thing for Magic to say because Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are/were both slender and are the best of their eras.

[kurt_rambis]

tim duncan is hardly slender

and both those guys have offensive games, unlike dwight, who just throws his 275lbs into defenders and hopes for the best

[magnax1]

When Dwight was 15, he was indeed too skinny to play in the NBA. So it was the correct assessment.

Telling anyone at 15 they can't make the NBA is never a "correct" assessment. It's a guess at a time when there is no way to correctly predict how well someone will be able to play. Hell, Pippen was 18 and didn't make a college team and was something like 6 foot tall, and then ends up being one of the best NBA players ever 10 years later.

[Inactive]

Telling anyone at 15 they can't make the NBA is never a "correct" assessment. It's a guess at a time when there is no way to correctly predict how well someone will be able to play. Hell, Pippen was 18 and didn't make a college team and was something like 6 foot tall, and then ends up being one of the best NBA players ever 10 years later.

Yup.

MJ was 16, he was like 5'10, couldn't make a highschool varsity squad, and struggled to beat his midget brother 1 on 1. 5-6 years later, he was doing historic things, in the NBA. 7-8 years after that, and he was pretty much the GOAT.

Countless stories, like that.

[KevinNYC]

How can Magic be fake when he told Dwight how he really felt?

This is a really good point.

I don't think Magic is fake in that his on-camera persona is different from what he is like off-camera. I think he is one of those guys who wants everyone to like him and wants to the source of the party. If that is being 'fake' there he is true to that 'fake' part of him all the time. i think this is the aspect of his personality you are responding to. Politicians are often like this, they want everyone to like them and if they are in a room with 99 people smiling at them and one guy sulking they will obsess about the one guy. I remember a story of Magic's first game when the Lakers hit a late shot to win it at then end and Magic was jumping around like a kid on Christmas and starting hugging Kareem (i think he a skyhook to win). You could imagine how a standoffish guy like Kareem would react to be hugging for a regular season win.

Psychologists might say, that someone who craves approval is probably acting out of insecurity. So if Magic's personality is fake I would say it's not a fake persona he puts on he's on camera, it's on he puts on when he wakes up in the morning. That is it's who he he is. It's authentic.

As for laughing at bad jokes, I think that is a genuine part of Magic's personality as well. This is a guy who chose to hang around with Arsenio Hall. Can you imagine how many bad jokes he had to hear. Arsenio was never funny when he had people writing his jokes. Can you imagine him unscripted? Good god.

Bird is 100% the opposite. He just doesn't care what people think of him. To an extreme, to the point when he first went to Boston he didn't speak to people (at least to reporters.) People thought he was an idiot, because he never spoke. It didn't bother him.

[Eat Like A Bosh]

Well Dwight was really skinny back then.

But still a celeb should never discourage a kid like that.

[AlphaWolf24]

and Magic, seeing that Dwight had indeed gained enough weight to make it to the NBA, retaliated by gaining 350 pounds himself and upstaging the young upstart.

[AlphaWolf24]

Yup.

MJ was 16, he was like 5'10, couldn't make a highschool varsity squad, and struggled to beat his midget brother 1 on 1. 5-6 years later, he was doing historic things, in the NBA. 7-8 years after that, and he was pretty much the GOAT.

Countless stories, like that.

Most NBA Players at 16 were not on the Varsity.....by 17 MJ was on the varsity and getting college scouts coming to his games....by 18 he was a Highschool allamerican and had UNC giving him scholarships where he went on to be a 2X player of the year...


go check out Rodman and Pippen's pre NBA career's....now that's amazing.

[MikeBeas2]

i do'not understande what he trying to say how do his own team say he wont make it 10 years ago but he end up going to the magic team after?? so stuipid hes in magic

[chips93]

everybody is assuming that howard is a perfect account of what happened

dwight could be just misquoted, or taken out of context

dwight may be exaggerating just to make it a good story

dwight may have remembered the story incorrectly

dwight may have just misinterpreted what magic said, magic may have intended it to be constructive

[PleezeBehave]

i do'not understande what he trying to say how do his own team say he wont make it 10 years ago but he end up going to the magic team after?? so stuipid hes in magic

[Psileas]

Magic Johnson might seem like a really nice guy on TV, but privately I think he is completely fake, you can detect the "fakeness" when he is on TV laughing at jokes that weren't even that funny. I remember when he was giving his speech in the HOF in 2010 when the 1992 dream team got inducted, you can see Barkley & Pippen in the background looking at Magic uninterested & annoyed, but when Bird gave his speech right after, he was making Barkley, Pippen & others laughing their asses off. You can sense they respect Bird more than Magic.

Then, how would you describe Magic's real character? Is he a well-hidden a$$hole? How relevant is this with making unfunny jokes?

[Psileas]

BTW, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with Magic's view on young Howard when he told him he was too skinny. He didn't tell him he was not good enough or that he wasn't talented enough. Last time I checked, Howard was never skinny when he played in the NBA and he's known for using his strength more than almost anyone, so you can't know whether Magic's assessment was wrong. If anything, he made good use of Magic's remark. I doubt Howard used the word "inspiration" ironically.