Magic Johnson Remembers the First and Only Time He Talked Trash to Michael Jordan

Magic Johnson discusses what happened when he made the mistake of talking trash to Michael Jordan.

May 20, 2016

Not Available Lead — Image via Complex Original
Complex Original

Magic Johnson didn’t talk trash on the basketball court very often, and he especially didn’t talk trash to his good friend Michael Jordan. He had heard about some of MJ’s most infamous trash-talking moments, and he knew better than to get on his bad side. But during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday night, Magic revealed that he did make an exception once and try to go at MJ. And guess what? It didn’t end well for him.

According to Magic, he and MJ were on opposing teams during a Dream Team practice back in 1992 when he decided that he was going to poke the bear. The team that Magic was playing on, which featured players from the NBA’s Western Conference, was leading the team MJ was playing on, which featured players from the Eastern Conference, by 10 points. So Magic walked up to MJ and told him he was going to need to “turn into Air Jordan” if his team was going to have any chance of coming back. And unfortunately for Magic, that’s exactly what MJ did. Here’s the story Magic told to Jimmy Kimmel:

MJ later went on to call the game that was played at that particular Dream Team practice the greatest game he was ever involved in. He went as far as to say that it was “the most fun I ever had on a basketball court.” You can watch a clip from a Sports Illustrated documentary on the game here:

Elsewhere in his interview with Kimmel, Magic also discussed his relationship with Prince and the time the legendary artist called and asked him to open one of his movie theaters up at 2 a.m. You can watch that portion of the interview here:

Funny stuff.

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