Mychal Thompson on who is really the GLOAT: Magic Johnson or Kobe Bryant?

On the night Kobe Bryant suited up for the Lakers for the final time, Magic Johnson made a fairly stunning concession. Nearly a year away from being tabbed to take control of the franchise, Johnson stood at center court and called Bryant “the biggest and greatest celebrity we’ve had in this town for 20 years.”

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Twenty thousand people went bonkers. Then Johnson said, “He is not only a great and unbelievable sports icon, but also he’s the greatest to wear the purple and gold.”

It felt like an incredibly magnanimous gesture by Johnson. For most of the modern history of basketball in Los Angeles, Johnson had been Mr. Laker — the progenitor of Showtime. Later that night, after Bryant had scored 60 points in the greatest performance I’d ever seen, I asked him how that comment had struck him.

“I refused to believe it because Magic is my hero,” Bryant said. “I don’t think you guys understand how much of a diehard Lakers fan I was. Magic was all over my wall. I used to wear really big knee pads because Magic wore really big knee pads. I used to practice the baby hook. He is and always will be No. 1 for me. Always.”

I always thought the fact that the acronym for “Greatest Laker of All Time” was a delicious coincidence. What could be more fitting than to call Bryant the GLOAT? He knew how great he was and liked to remind you of it.

But on the last night of his career, he wouldn’t accept the assist from Magic.

So if the two people who have reasonable claims to the title of greatest Laker of all time couldn’t agree, then how can the rest of us?

I know these debates can be tiresome. You signed up for a sports website, not a radio talk show. But in these extreme times, we find ourselves debating the big questions more than ever. In the survey of Lakers fans that Brett Dawson and I conducted last week, a majority of respondents selected Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, as the greatest Lakers player ever. And while Bryant dominates Johnson in terms of statistical categories in which he’s the Lakers’ all-time leader, that’s not really a fair comparison. Bryant played 20 years with the Lakers, while Johnson was entering just his 13th season when his career was cut short by his HIV diagnosis in 1991.

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This week, I found myself making the case for Bryant on my regular radio appearance on the “Roggin and Rodney” show on AM 570. USC legend and former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, a close friend of Johnson, argued on behalf of Magic.

Then on Thursday, Brett and I had Mychal Thompson on our “Basketball Reasons” podcast. The Lakers broadcaster who played with Johnson from 1986 to 1991 laid out a strong case for Johnson.

“If you want to say Kobe, you’re not crazy for saying that. It’s a legitimate argument,” Thompson said. “But for me, Magic Johnson is the greatest Laker ever. Look at the competition he had to go through, Dr. J and Moses Malone. He had to go through the Bad Boy Pistons with three Hall of Famers on that team in (Joe) Dumars, Isiah Thomas and Dennis Rodman. Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn were as tough as they come.

“So, when you look at the degree of difficulty that Magic had to go through to achieve his championships, you’ve got to give the edge to Magic.”

Johnson also had the distinction of leading the Lakers, along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the rest of the Showtime crew, to their first series win over the Boston Celtics after eight straight losses dating back to 1959.

Bryant beat the Celtics, too, and finished with five rings, just like Johnson. But Thompson, now the color commentator on Lakers radio broadcasts, wasn’t having it.

“When you compare the Detroit Pistons, the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers to the Indiana Pacers, the Orlando Magic and the New Jersey Nets?” Thompson said. “C’mon. When it comes to winning rings? C’mon.”

Thompson also discussed his brother Andy’s role in “The Last Dance,” the 10-part documentary series airing weekly on ESPN. Andy Thompson, who appeared on The Athletic’s “Tampering” podcast on Monday, had the initial idea for the project and is listed as executive producer.

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“He’s as good at his job behind the scenes as people like LeBron (James) and Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo, those kind of guys, Kawhi (Leonard), are in front of the public doing their jobs,” Mychal Thompson said. “Behind the scenes — putting together film, videos — he’s as good as what he does as they are at what they do.”

Here are other highlights from our interview with Thompson.

On the Lakers’ prospects before the season was suspended: “Well, (the season) was definitely leading to a Western Conference showdown with the Clippers. That’s the first step. Obviously, you had to go through the first and second round, but I didn’t worry about that. Whoever the Lakers faced, I was only concerned about a seven-game series against the Clips, the Lakers winning that, moving onto the Finals and winning (against) whoever came out of the East. When you have the best combo, 1-2 punch in the game, with some good coaching, experienced coaching on the bench and some good players around, the supporting cast, I thought the Lakers were the favorites to win it.”

On any inside information he has on “The Last Dance”: “From what I’ve heard about this, from (Andy) telling me about it in detail, very private detail about what went on behind the scenes, I know that … it’s going to be worth sitting around watching. We just got an appetizer in the first two episodes. It’s going to get even better. It’s about time this came out because it’s been sitting there forever. … When you see this thing being played out for the Bulls, you wish that every legendary team, every iconic team had this kind of documentary sort of logging their last year together. This should have been going on for like every team.

On Andy Thompson not being able to finish the project for so many years: “It was very frustrating for not to have it being released like 10, 15 years ago, but, like you said, maybe at 20-something years later, for all this stuff to still be talked about, (with) Michael Jordan’s iconic and legendary status lasting for infinity, that maybe this was the right time for it to come out. And definitely the right time because people need it because of the pandemic we’re going through and people just need some kind of distraction and something to entertain themselves besides just getting NFL updates on who’s getting signed.”

On the 1991 Finals between the Lakers and Bulls: “We were shortchanged. We lost James Worthy in that series. He played Game 1 and then he had to basically sit out the rest of the series because of his bad ankle, so we didn’t get to see the best of the Lakers go against the best of the Bulls. Without James we didn’t have a chance to beat the Bulls. I thought with a healthy James Worthy we would have probably won that series. Remember we won Game 1 in Chicago with Worthy, then he turned his ankle and basically it was done. So who knows? Maybe Michael Jordan might only have five rings. He might be 5-1 in the Finals. … That was his first championship, and you could see what was coming, how great he was and how great that team was going to be in the coming years. But he was as fierce of a competitor as ever competed in any game.”

On Klay Thompson missing a year of his career with injury, like Mychal did in 1979-80: “I tell him, ‘I went through the same thing.’ Obviously, a different injury — I had a broken leg, he tore up his ACL — but it’s the same thing, I had to miss the year, and I told him the best thing he can do is for your body to get stronger, and you’ll come back and be even a better player as he starts getting into his prime now. At 30 years of age, I said, if you take care of your body this offseason, because you can’t do anything else, that will prolong your career and keep you less susceptible to injury.”

(Photo of Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant: Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)

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