Magic heads to Hall

[stephen beauregard <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

NBA NOTEBOOK

Magic heads to Hall

76ers' Brown also will be enshrined

By Peter May, Globe Staff, 6/6/2002

OS ANGELES - He won five NBA titles, an NCAA championship, and an
Olympic gold medal as part of the greatest basketball team ever
assembled. But getting the official word from Springfield, Mass.,
yesterday - not that there was any suspense - may have meant even more
to Magic Johnson than all the titles combined.



The great Lakers' guard heads the Class of 2002 for the Basketball Hall
of Fame, whose new members will be inducted in September. Joining
Johnson are 76ers coach Larry Brown, University of Arizona coach Lute
Olson, the late, great Drazen Petrovic, Kay Yow, the longtime women's
coach at North Carolina State, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

At a ceremony yesterday at a downtown hotel, Johnson, who led the
Lakers' Showtime team to titles in 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988,
sounded truly humbled by his latest achievement. ''All I wanted to do,''
he said, ''is be the best I could be.'' That was more than enough for
the Hall voters.

''It's been a great ride, this is a great moment for me, my family,''
Johnson said. ''I'm emotional, I'm sure I'll be more emotional in
September. I tried to represent the city and the organization the best I
could. By doing that, this is my reward.

''Every guy I played with has a piece of it. It's the cake, ice cream.
Because I've been working out, I get two slices.''

Johnson also won the NCAA championship in 1979, leading Michigan State
over Larry Bird's Indiana State team. Bird and Johnson were rivals in
the 1980s and then joined together to play on the 1992 US Olympic Team,
the first from the United States which allowed NBA players.

Brown has been all over the map; Philadelphia is merely the latest entry
in his lengthy resume. In the NBA, he has coached at Denver, New Jersey,
Los Angeles (Clippers), San Antonio, and Indiana. (He came very close to
coming to Boston in 1997, but the Celtics went instead for Rick Pitino.)
He also was a member of the 1964 US Olympic, gold-medal winning
basketball team and won an NCAA championship while coaching at Kansas in
1988.

The 61-year-old Brown talked reverentially of the many coaches who
preceded him, mentioning his college coach, Dean Smith, as well as Pete
Newell, Henry Iba, John Chaney, and Alex Hannum.

''I don't know if that fits,'' he said, when asked if he belonged in
such august company. ''This is so special because it's something you
never anticipate happening.''

Olson, 67, won the 1997 NCAA title (over Pitino's last Kentucky team)
and has coached five teams to the NCAA Final Four. Petrovic was a
dynamic guard from Croatia who played for the Yugoslavian National Team
before the nation split apart. He also played four seasons in the NBA
with Portland and New Jersey. He died in an automobile accident in New
Jersey nine years ago and was represented at yesterday's ceremony by his
mother.

The Globetrotters will be enshrined as a team, the fifth such entry in
the Hall.

Winter, Worthy out

Two nominees who did not make it were Lakers assistant Tex Winter and
former Lakers forward James Worthy. Winter, who invented the triangle
offense, has been at the side of Phil Jackson for the Chicago and Los
Angeles titles and has been coaching for 55 years. ''It's kind of
amazing. This guy has been coaching for 55 years and he's contributed
the bulk of his knowledge to the game,'' Jackson said of Winter's
exclusion. ''And yet the Hall of Fame has refused to acknowledge his
influence on the game.'' Nets coach Byron Scott, who played with Johnson
and Worthy on the Lakers, went to bat for his former teammate. ''It's
hard for me to imagine James Worthy being one of the top 50 players in
NBA history and not getting into the Hall of Fame,'' Scott said. ''That
doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure James Worthy will get in there.
There's no doubt in my mind.'' ... Miami coach Pat Riley, who really
doesn't need it, will soon be getting more money in the mail because he
had the foresight to patent the phrase ''three-peat'' back in the late
1980s. But that doesn't mean he necessarily invented the term. Scott
said he, Riley, and some others were relaxing in a pool in Hawaii after
Los Angeles won its second straight championship in 1988. They put their
heads together to come up with a catchy phrase and, voila. When asked if
he invented the term, Scott laughed and said, ''it's so long ago. But
yes, I did ... I see it on shirts. I see it on hats,'' Scott said. ''I
figure he [Riley] owes me $2-3 million.'' ... No one was placing any
stock in the two regular-season meetings between the Nets and Lakers.
They came a month apart, late in the season. In the first meeting on
March 5, the Lakers won, 101-92, in the Staples Center as Shaquille
O'Neal had 40 points. The Lakers were without Kobe Bryant(serving a
suspension) and the Nets were without Kenyon Martin(also serving a
suspension). The Nets prevailed, 94-92, in New Jersey on April 3. LA
played without O'Neal, who was nursing a wrist injury. He missed the
game in Boston two nights later for the same reason and the Lakers
suffered a similar fate.