BOOKS: 'When the Game Was Ours'

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By Claude R. Marx

WHEN THE GAME WAS OURS
By Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jackie McMullen
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 352 pages
REVIEWED BY CLAUDE R. MARX

Given the global popularity of the NBA today, it is easy to forget that at one time the game had such a meager following that its championship games were televised on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. because their ratings weren't strong enough to warrant prime time coverage.

Then Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson came along.

Their first-rate playing skills and intriguing personalities helped fuel not only a strong personal rivalry between them and between their respective teams, Bird's Boston Celtics and Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers. Their success, combined with the marketing prowess of NBA Commissioner David Stern, changed the game forever.

While Bird and Johnson have discussed that era in their own memoirs, in "When the Game Was Ours" they give their combined perspectives on the period.

The basketball legends collaborated with veteran sports columnist Jackie MacMullan (who worked with Bird on his memoir "Bird Watching") and wrote it in the third-person. So Bird's and Johnson's voices appear as two of the many in the narrative.

The least revelatory parts are those that focus on the authors' on-court performances. That's because there has already been so much written about the subject that there isn't a great deal to add.

It contains the obligatory descriptions of the key games and of the stars' contrasting playing techniques. And what numbers they amassed: 39,498 career points, 15,836 assists, 15,533 rebounds and 3,280 steals.

"Yet the numbers don't begin to explain their impact on the game. When Bird called it quits, the NBA emitted a collective sigh," Ms. MacMullan writes.

Their successes resulted in both being inducted into the Hall of Fame and leading their teams to numerous championships: five for Johnson's Lakers and three for Bird's Celtics.