The Announcement--ESPN

Fair or unfair, if you have HIV/AIDS there will be rumors.

Hell, I remember the Isiah Thomas jokes that started right after "The Announcement"

 

For sure. I just thought that people had come down so hard on Kindred in the aftermath of his column in '91 that it had become largely taboo to even broach that question in the mainstream media.

 

No, but when Magic went on Arsenio Hall's show soon after the announcement, Arsenio asked him point blank if he was gay. When Magic said no, the in-studio crowd applauded wildly.

That was the point Simmons was raising, that as heartbroken as people were that one of their heroes had been stricken with a life-threatening illness, that at least he didn't get it from being a social deviant. Magic wasn't about to throw the black community of 20 years ago under the bus that way, and I can't say I blame him.

 

Wasn't there an accusation that someone was spreading the rumor about Magic, which, combined with the fact that he was no longer speaking to his best friend Isiah, made it pretty easy to figure out who was spreading it? The prime time special he did at the time, where he talked about having five or six women at the same time, I thought that was part of the effort to combat the gay rumor.

I also thought there was a belief at the time that the rumor-spreading, more than the All-Star freeze-out of Jordan, was the reason Isiah didn't make the Dream Team.

 

I haven't watched the special, but I do remember the event 20 years ago. That night, the Lakers' cable home, Prime Ticket at the time, was broadcasting after the press conference. That day, there were rumors about Magic's sex life.

Chick Hearn was being interviewed, and Chick being Chick, was talking about these rumors, and told the viewing audience, that if anyone tells you (Magic is gay), "you deny it!!"

My friends and I have laughed about that for 20 years. If someone told me about Magic being gay, I was supposed to deny it.

 

I'd never heard that Magic might have had something to do with Isiah being kept off the Dream Team. As far as I know the two are still tight, but who knows?

 

Chick Hearn: "He's bisexual dammit!!!"

 

From 2009 when Magic's book came out:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/ian_thomsen/10/22/isiah.magic/index.html

Magic addresses years of rumors by finally accusing Thomas of questioning his sexuality after Johnson was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. Magic also admits that he joined with Michael Jordan and other players in blackballing Thomas from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team, saying, "Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. ... Michael didn't want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn't pushing for him. Karl Malone didn't want him. Who was saying, 'We need this guy?' Nobody.''

"I'm glad that he's finally had the nerve and the courage to stand up and say it was him, as opposed to letting Michael Jordan take the blame for it all these years,'' Thomas responded during one of several interviews he gave to SI.com on Wednesday. "I wish he would have had the courage to say this stuff to me face to face, as opposed to writing it in some damn book to sell and he can make money off it.''

 

Wow, that's good stuff...

 

In retrospect, the straight/gay rumors were out there at the time, but weren't necessarily addressed heavily in the documentary.

 

I would have been pretty stunned if it came up.

 

Oh, Isiah, you bitter, bitter man.

"I'm tired of getting punched and people using me because they think I'm not going to say anything."

Well, stop ruining minor basketball leagues and NBA franchises, and people won't say things about you anymore.