According to Malone, he wasn’t comfortable with the thought of playing with Johnson.
When Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV in 1991, some of his peers were adamant about him never playing basketball again. In fact, there was one in particular, specifically Utah Jazz legend Karl Malone, who caused controversy by publicly voicing why he no longer wanted to share the court with the Los Angeles Lakers legend. For Malone, it was as simple as the fact that he didn’t want to inherit the contagious disease.
“If you got the AIDS virus, it would be hard for me to play as hard as I’m playing,” Malone once said regarding Johnson. “And if people can’t respect my decision… that’s tough.”
Johnson was hurt by Malone’s words and actions
This quote by Malone was released during the 1992 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando when most of the All-Stars involved were divided in their opinion on whether they wanted the five-time champion to participate or not. At the same time, it was the “Mailman” who looked like the outspoken and ignorant one who didn’t want Johnson there. Detroit Pistons icon Isiah Thomas, meanwhile, played the opposite role and gathered troops to support and uplift Johnson’s spirits.
Years later, the three-time regular season MVP and Finals MVP admitted that what Malone did disappointed and hurt him, especially since they had just played for the United States Men’s basketball team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
“He [Karl Malone] came out publicly with it. Now, I just played with you on the Dream Team. I practiced against you every single day. And now you don’t want to play with me? I mean, against me?” Johnson said in his appearance on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast in 2023. “I was like, ‘Wow, you could have just said that to me.'”
Magic also admitted that this was one of the reasons why he decided to take a four-year hiatus from basketball and retire for the first time. The Lakers guard didn’t want to be looked at in a certain way by his peers around the league. So Magic spent most of his time off the court by educating communities about the virus. He eventually came back to the NBA in 1996 but only played half of a season.
Magic’s teammate felt that Malone had an agenda
Johnson had the right to feel hurt and betrayed by Malone’s stance, but the latter was also entitled to his opinion. In fairness to the Jazz forward, HIV was the second cause of death among men in the 25-44 age bracket, so it made sense when he said that he wouldn’t want to play with his “Dream Team” teammate on the court. However, Magic’s teammate on the Lakers, particularly Byron Scott, felt that Karl had a different agenda in mind when he was speaking up against Johnson.
In his book entitled From When the Game Was Ours, the three-time champion claimed that Malone didn’t want Johnson to return because he was simply scared of the Lakers.
“[Malone] knew the deal. He knew we had the best team with Earvin, and if Earv didn’t play, Utah would have a better shot of getting to the Finals,” Scott wrote. “I couldn’t believe Karl would stab him in the back like that. I’ve never forgiven him.”
No one has confirmed or probably will ever whether Malone truly had an agenda at that time or not. But at the very least, the two Hall of Famers eventually made amends and got past this dramatic issue of theirs by the time Johnson returned back to the league in 1996.