After Magic, Bird and MJ, the league had fallen into years of low-scoring thugball.
It was also the year that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird joined the NBA and it began its staggering ascent over the next three decades.
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Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas were each reviled by at least a few teammates for their brutal verbal takedowns of lesser players --and almost everyone in their respective locker rooms were lesser players.
When the NBA began to explode in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s (thanks to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and, eventually, Michael Jordan), television rights fees escalated in concert.
That's probably why, in the NBA, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers teams of the '80s, led by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, respectively, rate higher than the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls clubs of the 1990s.
With no competition from EA Sports yet again this year, things were looking good until the NBA lockout. 2K Sports knew that was coming and focused on NBA legends like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Dr. J for the cover as well as new gameplay modes.
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Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and a Hall of Fame list of others had that.
The producers were reportedly this close to casting a couple of six-footers as Bird and Magic and filling out the cast with little people.
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That wasn't worth much at first, but thanks to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and, eventually, Michael Jordan, the NBA exploded in popularity in the 1980s and '90s.
Eleven Hall of Fame players, including Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley, came together to crush international opponents and win Olympic gold in Barcelona, Spain.
For the March Madness television coverage, the company not only released more ads in the same formula, but created a new set, where NBA greats Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Bill Russell take the role of the kids.
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Magic Johnson entered the NBA the same year as Bird, and joined a team that had underperformed for years.
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