“The Ultimate Showdown: Reliving the Epic NBA Debut Clash Between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in 1979!”

Reliving the Most storied rivalry in basketball forty years later: Magic vs. Bird.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird squared off in the NBA for the first time in 1979. SI looks at the rivalry between the NBA’s greatest players and how it affected the league’s structure.

Tomorrow night in Inglewood forty years ago, the Forum hosted “the single most-awaited game in Laker history,” according to Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe. Considering the team’s star-studded background, it was saying something. For the first time since their matchup in the NCAA championship game nine months prior, Larry Bird and his Boston Celtics were in town to take on Magic Johnson and the Lakers.

The popular opinion has long been that the NBA was saved by the rivalry between the Magic and Bird. Furthermore, there is more than a little substance to this story—from-the-hip hot takes rarely provide the complete picture. In 1992, SI’s Jack McCallum observed, “If Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did not save the NBA, they most certainly performed CPR on it,” marking the end of the rivalry.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately regarding the NBA’s declining TV ratings, but the present scenario will never compare to what Magic and Bird faced when they first entered the league until TNT begins preempting games in favor of older episodes of Rizzoli and Isles. In 1979, how hopeless was the league’s situation? Prior to his debut season.

“I can understand why fans don’t like to watch pro basketball,” Bird began speaking with SI. Nor do I. It’s not thrilling. You know something is seriously wrong when the man SI refers to as “the Designated Savior of professional basketball” expresses such blatant contempt for your game.