Magic and Larry. Or, Larry and Magic.

Take your pick. Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird. A pair of NBA legends, joined at the hip. Their personal rivalry, and the battles that the Lakers and Celtics waged during the 1980s, elevated pro basketball from reruns (the 1980 NBA Finals were on shown tape delay) to a billion-dollar industry.

There’s no Michael Jordan mania without Magic and Larry. Same with LeBron James. Go ahead and disagree. It wouldn’t have happened. The NBA was regional and not a national sport, until Johnson and Bird appeared on the scene.

The NBA truly belonged to Magic and Larry.

And how appropriate that Jackie MacMullan, whose insights about pro basketball as a print and television journalist are top notch, should work on a book with Johnson and Bird.

MacMullan interviewed nearly 100 different people and collaborated with Johnson and Bird to produce “When the Game Was Ours,” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26).

I found it interesting that this book was born out of a failed project. Originally, this was supposed to done several years ago as a coffee table book, with pictures and 20,000 to 30,000 words of text, MacMullan said in a radio interview last month in Boston.

When it didn’t happen, MacMullan kept her notes and began to dig deeper. What she has achieved with Johnson and Bird in this book is a very absorbing, intense look at two men whose initial animosity eventually led to a grudging respect — and finally, a deepening friendship.

MacMullan said what surprised her about the rivalry was “how obsessed they were with each other individually.”
Johnson’s Michigan State team had beaten Bird’s Indiana State squad for the 1979 NCAA championship, and Magic was already hoisting an NBA title by 1980. The prospect drove Bird crazy — but Johnson was equally out of sorts when he heard about the overwhelming margin of Bird’s victory over him in the NBA Rookie of the Year voting.

The most interesting passages in the book concern Johnson dealing with testing HIV-positive. Always an outgoing, ebullient player, Johnson had to face players, coaches, fans and media who were still new to the AIDS scare. Many believed that testing HIV-positive was similar to receiving a death sentence and wanted to avoid Magic.

That those people were avoiding him was startling to Johnson.

“It took me a while to realize they didn’t want my sweat on their body,” Johnson said.

Johnson created a stir when he discussed his broken relationship with Detroit’s Isiah Thomas, who had called NBA friends, “asking curious questions,” about Johnson’s sexuality, according to the book.

That led to Johnson lobbying to keep Thomas off the 1992 Olympics “Dream Team” for personal reasons.

The two men haven’t spoken since excerpts of the book were released. Monday in a conference call with reporters, Johnson was not optimistic about a sit-down.

“If that day comes, then we’ll sit down and talk,” he said. “If that day doesn’t come, then it doesn’t come.”

The underlying theme in the book is the animosity and competitiveness between Johnson and Bird. Their relationship took a warmer turn when the two of them appeared in a commercial for Converse in 1985. Johnson traveled to Bird’s hometown to film it, and they discovered they had a lot more in common, particularly in their upbringing, than they realized.

MacMullan has done a wonderful job giving both players their say, and sketches an intimate portrait of the growth of the NBA during the 1980s. Both players are candid in their opinions and their recollections, and that honesty is the biggest strength of “When the Game Was Ours.”