The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
— Mahatma Ghandi
A feud that dates back nearly three decades was buried Tuesday night between NBA hall-of-famers Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Isiah Thomas.
As part of an NBA TV “Players Only Monthly” television special that brought the two NBA legends together, Johnson reached out to Thomas and formally apologized in an emotional scene that then saw both men stand and embrace with tears in their eyes.
“You are my brother,” Johnson said. “Let me apologize to you if I hurt you that we haven’t been together and God is good.”
This marks the end of a dispute that can, optically, be traced back to the 1988 NBA Finals that saw Johnson’s Los Angles Lakers defeat Thomas’ Detroit Pistons in seven games. In Game 4 of that series, Johnson delivered a hard foul to Thomas who was coming down the lane, after which the Pistons guard got up and delivered a shove back in kind.
That incident, ultimately, didn’t affect both men’s relationship with each other, but it may have planted the seed.
In the 2009 autobiography “When The Game Was Ours” that Johnson, Larry Bird and Jackie MacMullan all co-authored, Johnson discusses that Thomas questioned his sexuality after the Lakers legend retired from basketball in 1991 after being diagnosed with HIV.
This revelation in the book was then followed up with the crux of how Johnson and Thomas went from best friends to enemies: The 1992 Olympic “Dream Team” that Thomas was mysteriously and very noticeably omitted from.
“Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics,” Johnson wrote. “Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. … I’m sad for Isiah. He has alienated so many people in his life, and he still doesn’t get it.”
“I’m just disappointed and hurt,” Thomas told the Associated Press in 2009 before the book came out. “I never thought it was him who kept me off the Olympic team. That hurt. …
“I wish he would have called me. I always believed that our friendship was good and close enough that we wouldn’t have to talk about this stuff in such a public venue.”
That appears to all just be water under the bridge now as Johnson and Thomas were yucking it up like old times all through the television special before the big apology.
Still, as nice a moment as it was, neither men addressed why it took almost 30 years for the two to finally make up, nor what the heart of the issue with each other was in the first place.
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