"I thought their relationship did wonders for race relations" - Robert Parish outlines the importance of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's friendship

No other rivalry in the history of the NBA captured the imagination of a nation the way Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did back in the 80s. They were the undisputed leaders of two of the most storied franchises in the league, the LA Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Thousands of basketball fans identified themselves not just with the two champion teams but also the main characters that were fueling the rivalry.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird would also come to represent the NBA’s racial divide during those years. Magic was the smooth and athletic African-American playmaking genius, while Bird was known no less as “The Great White Hope.” Their battles would often spill into the stands not for basketball reasons but for the racism that simmered just beneath the surface of basketball’s most intense rivalry.

Bird’s former teammate and Hall-of-Famer Robert Parish in Jackie MacMullan’s Icons Club, related how the radically different superstars’ friendship had a bigger impact than anticipated:

“Those two made it okay to be friends with someone that don’t look exactly like me or exactly like you. They made it cool not only to be friends but to be cool friends. I thought their relationship did wonders for race relations.”

The Lakers and Celtics icons have been forever intertwined since they battled for glory in the 1979 NCAA championship that Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans won. Larry Bird, who never forgot that painful loss, hoped and finally got back at the “Junior” in the 1984 NBA championship.

Johnson and Bird relentlessly looked for the tiniest edge to be better than the other. They maddeningly drove each other to heights they probably would not have reached without perpetually looking behind their respective shoulders. At some point, that heated rivalry gave way to grudging respect and admiration.

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The Converse commercial that broke the ice for Magic Johnson and Larry Bird

The Converse commercial that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird shot in 1985 was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. [Photo: Sporting News]

Besides his now trademark trash-talk, Larry Bird never had a meaningful conversation with Magic Johnson. It was about to change big-time when Converse, in 1985, cajoled the intense rivals into shooting a commercial in Bird’s hometown of French Lick, Indiana.

As documentaries and reports would point out, the two didn’t talk even during the shooting. It wasn’t until Bird’s mom took the initiative that the Lakers and Celtics’ franchise players bonded over lunch. Years later, Magic Johnson will provide the details of that historic meeting:

"His mom gave me the biggest hug and hello, and right then she had me. Then Larry and I sat down for lunch, and I tell you, we figured out we're so much alike. We're both from the Midwest, we grew up poor, our families [are] everything to us, basketball is everything to us. So that changed my whole outlook on Larry Bird."

The lunch would be put on the back burner as the basketball superstars fought many more fierce and controversial battles. However, that fateful get-together would help shape a friendship that had a more far-reaching impact than they would have imagined. It’s also a friendship that has stood the test of time and circumstance.