In the Seventies, the NBA was sputtering. Playoff video games had been on tape-delay. Most of the league’s groups had been in debt, baseball was nonetheless firmly America’s sport and lesser-known small market franchises had been successful titles. However then an inflow of expertise modified the whole operation. The 1979-80 NBA season noticed rookies Magic Johnson and Larry Chicken explode on to the scene with the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, respectively. However even then, the 2 had been identified portions and so, too, was their budding rivalry. All of it started in school the yr prior. The 1979 NCAA title sport featured Johnson’s Michigan State workforce defeating Chicken’s Indiana State in what continues to be the most-watched basketball sport ever within the US. It was a matchup that featured Magic’s flash and charisma in opposition to Chicken’s quiet genius. Two expert passers making their groups higher. Quick-forward 45 years and historical past is repeating itself, this time with the WNBA’s Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. Simply ask Magic himself.
“Larry and I heightened the NBA’s general recognition,” Johnson wrote on X on Monday. “The Lakers and Celtics offered out arenas all through the league and elevated tv viewership exponentially. The upper viewership numbers led to the NBA signing considerably bigger TV contracts which then led to larger salaries for the gamers. Caitlin and Angel at the moment are doing the identical factor, promoting out arenas and rising the viewership.”
The parallels between the Magic/Chicken and Reese/Clark rivalry are many, beginning with a matchup within the NCAA championship spherical. Reese and Clark confronted off in 2023 within the title sport as the previous’s LSU Tigers performed in opposition to the latter’s Iowa Hawkeyes. The occasion broke viewing data, too, changing into the most-watched girls’s school basketball ever, drawing practically 10m pairs of eyeballs. However in contrast to Magic and Chicken’s contest, the one between Reese and Clark included some glorious trash discuss. Reese taunted Clark, who turned the NCAA’s highest scoring participant ever in 2024, pointing to her finger to let Clark know who bought the championship ring. Ever since then, the 2 have been must-see TV on their very own, however particularly when matched up collectively.
“They’ve taken girls’s basketball by storm and with expiring TV offers on the horizon,” added Magic on X, “the WNBA is now able to barter larger TV contracts and improve salaries for all the proficient gamers.” (Not solely that, however the Las Vegas Aces with star A’ja Wilson are promoting out video games left and proper. The rising tide lifts all boats.)
On Sunday, Reese and Clark matched up within the WNBA for his or her newest head-to-head bout, as Clark’s Indiana Fever fell to Reese’s Chicago Sky on the highway, 88-87. Clark scored 17 factors to associate with six rebounds and 13 assists. However Reese had the larger stat-line, scoring 25 factors with 16 rebounds and persevering with her streak of consecutive double-doubles. After the sport, Reese, whose workforce was down by 15 factors earlier than making a stirring comeback, touted her energy and confidence, saying, “I’m a canine. You may’t educate that.” Their two groups subsequent play on 30 August, in what could possibly be a sport to resolve playoff implications.
“I believe rivalries are nice in sports activities,” corridor of famer Nancy Lieberman, a former WNBA participant, coach and government, tells the Guardian. “Larry and Magic, [Tom] Brady and [Peyton] Manning, Martina [Navratilova] and Chris [Evert] – rivalries are wholesome they usually create pleasure for followers. Why shouldn’t we take a look at these two gamers who’ve huge expertise, who got here out with big fan bases? There’s nothing fallacious with it.”
Lieberman, who has an NCAA award named after her for the nation’s high level guard, which Clark has gained a number of occasions, was such a very good participant in her day that she was referred to as “Woman Magic.” When the WNBA’s first season started in 1997, the Brooklyn-born baller was the league’s oldest participant at 39 and in 2008, on the age of fifty, she signed a contract to play with the Detroit Shock. All of which is to say, she’s seen a factor or two in basketball. And with that skilled eye, she says she agrees with Johnson’s evaluation of Reese and Clark’s rivalry.
“Each level that someone might throw at it, they’ve,” Lieberman says. “From race, from enjoying one another in school, being roughly the identical age and enjoying within the ‘W’ – oh my God, that is going to be 15-18 yr’s price of enjoyable. They’re so good.”
Like Clark and Reese, Magic and Chicken performed completely different positions, which means they hardly ever guarded one another on court docket. Each rivalries are actually concerning the gamers’ general impression on the sport, and society typically. And when it got here to Magic and Chicken, their rivalry appeared ordained. Magic, together with his million-dollar smile, performed in a metropolis stuffed with movie stars. Chicken together with his quiet demeanor performed a continent’s width away within the barely much less glitzy Boston.
We caught the creativeness of everybody in America,” Johnson as soon as stated of the rivalry. “Folks needed to see us play in opposition to each other … If you happen to like competitors you need to play in opposition to the very best, and that’s what we needed to do.”
However whereas Reese and Clark’s groups are within the Midwest (Reese performs within the metropolis Michael Jordan made well-known and Clark performs in Chicken’s dwelling state), their rivalry has parallels. Chicken and Magic turned very rich males, partly because of their enjoying abilities and partly as a result of fame their rivalry fueled. And whereas Reese and Clark don’t earn anyplace close to the salaries Magic and Chicken pulled in – each girls shall be paid lower than $75,000 by their groups this season – they’ve signed profitable endorsement offers. Clark and Reese had been incomes tens of millions in endorsements whereas nonetheless in school, and people sums have solely elevated now they’re skilled: Clark has reportedly signed a $28m deal with Nike.
And whereas America’s rampant commercialism has benefited all 4 gamers, there are different facets of the US which have had extra sinister results on their lives. Each rivalries pit a Black participant in opposition to a white participant, one thing that has been inevitably magnified and weaponized by others in a rustic rife with racial divisions. And the gamers had been, and are, compelled to touch upon it. Magic and Chicken refused to fire up these tensions, and there are indicators Reese and Clark need nothing to do with it both. “Folks shouldn’t be utilizing my title to push these agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable,” Clark stated earlier this month.
These feedback got here after many Black and homosexual gamers within the WNBA had been abused on social media by those that imagine Clark has been focused because of her race (the truth is way extra nuanced). Clark had initially stayed silent earlier than Connecticut Solar guard, DiJonai Carrington, who’s Black, had addressed her on X: “Dawg. How one cannot be bothered by their title getting used to justify racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia & the intersectionalities of all of them is nuts. All of us see the sh*t. All of us have a platform. All of us have a voice & all of them maintain weight. Silence is a luxurious.”
Whereas folks additionally turned Magic and Chicken’s pores and skin coloration into weapons, Lieberman believes the state of affairs is extra intense for Clark and Reese.
“Martina and Chris, Larry and Magic,” says Lieberman, “they didn’t must take care of social media. I believe it’s actually tougher on [Angel and Caitlin]. Complete strangers have an opinion and are entitled to it, apparently. You need to shut out the noise of the individuals who have an affect in your life. It doesn’t imply that you simply’re not appreciative of followers, however you even have to remain true to your individual values. Most followers have by no means been in your sneakers.”
Xavier McDaniel, who performed in opposition to Magic and Chicken, within the late Nineteen Eighties, additionally sees similarities.
“[Clark and Reese remind me of Magic and Bird] slightly bit as a result of one is Black and one is white. That’s the intriguing factor about it, I suppose,” he says. “However I do know the athletes don’t be it like that. They’re competing and making an attempt exhausting. Particularly once you take heed to a number of the issues that Caitlin Clark is saying, like, ‘I’m simply on the market competing.’”
And whereas Reese and Clark have insisted they haven’t any private beef with one another, they aren’t precisely shut mates. That would change. Johnson stated he started to bond with Chicken once they shot a business collectively in 1985, when their enjoying careers had been in full swing.
“Larry and I sat down for lunch, and I let you know, we discovered we’re a lot alike,” Johnson stated of that assembly. “We’re each from the Midwest, we grew up poor, our households [are] all the pieces to us, basketball is all the pieces to us. In order that modified my complete outlook on Larry Chicken.”
Lieberman expects nice issues of the Clark-Reese rivalry, even when they don’t turn into as shut as Magic and Chicken. However nobody wins a championship alone. Johnson performed with corridor of famers like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper and James Worthy. Whereas Chicken laced up his sneakers alongside his personal assortment of all-time greats in Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson. Corridor of famers had been in all places in these Celtic-Lakers video games. Because of this, the 2 met within the NBA finals 3 times and at the very least certainly one of their franchises performed in each championship collection within the Nineteen Eighties. After Magic and Chicken arrived, the NBA stopped placing finals video games on tape delay. And whereas Chicken gained Rookie of the 12 months that first season, it was Johnson who took dwelling a title and the Finals MVP award in 1980.
“Each [Reese and Clark’s teams] are proper there within the playoff image,” says Lieberman. “So, something is feasible. It will be unbelievable for each of them to make the playoffs of their first yr. But it surely’s not nearly them. They’re the TV highlights however successful a championship won’t simply be about them. Will probably be about their teammates and the way exhausting they’ll play and develop collectively.”
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