Word: jabbar
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...healthy guy like Magic Johnson, you think this illness wouldn't attack someone like him. But it did." Many others were sobered at the thought that if even the most enchanted and mobile of bodies was vulnerable, it could, as Johnson pointed out, "happen to anybody." Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the thoughtful, soft-spoken 7-ft. 2-in. giant of the game, simply broke down and wept...
...Magic could be said to have begun in 1979 with the first professional game Johnson won for the Lakers, which ended with his leaping into the arms of his startled and famously reserved teammate, Abdul-Jabbar. In the final game of the championship series that year, with Abdul-Jabbar injured, Johnson played all five positions, and somehow in his rookie season conjured a victory out of thin air. But even when the Most Valuable Player awards and championships became commonplace, and the miraculous expected, Johnson worked overtime to transcend all expectation, developing a three-point shot that was lethal, practicing...
...also, and more important, the most popular, whose brilliance played a large part in making N.B.A. basketball one of the success stories of the decade with fans across five continents. He had an appeal that earlier, more complex stars of the game such as Bill Russell and Abdul-Jabbar could never match. Even Michael Jordan, his only serious rival in stature and skill, prompted a few grumbles and questions around the league as Johnson never did. Though Johnson has become famous for his eagerness to parlay his success into a show-biz career and a $100 million business empire...
...Magic won't have a grand blast-off like Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] did," McNamer said. "It was so sudden, and now he's finished...
...announcing that henceforth he wished to be regarded as a rap singer, folks might understand. But this is Raffi, the Canadian folk singer who has mesmerized more preschoolers than anyone else since that piper from Hamelin. His defection from the marketplace of kids' music is comparable to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's departure from the Lakers -- he leaves behind similar, smaller shadows, but none to take his place...