It’s nice to see laughter mixed in with the tears from those remembering the late, great Kobe Bryant.
On Tuesday, Earvin “Magic” Johnson joined Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night ABC talk show, when the two reminisced about the man Magic himself considers to be the greatest Los Angeles Lakers player of all time.
For the record, that is a distinction that Johnson, himself Lakers royalty, bestowed upon Bryant well before Sunday’s tragic helicopter crash.
Also for the record, Tuesday night’s appearance by Magic was a previously scheduled one.
“Kobe wouldn’t have wanted me to cancel,” the NBA legend told Kimmel. “Kobe would want us all to carry on and be great in our lives.”
“You were his idol,” Kimmel said at one point.
“We idolized each other,” Johnson corrected his host.
Magic then told Kimmel about the one time he and Bryant played one-on-one. Johnson acknowledge that he had to “cheat” to keep up with the younger Kobe.
“It was like you were on the Houston Astros,” Kimmel quipped, crossing sports for the reference.
They had a lot of fun with that one.
Well, maybe Magic had a little less fun than Jimmy did, considering the five-time champion was quick to recall that time the Lakers got in a little trouble for the remarks Johnson, then team president, made about free agent Paul George on “Kimmel.”
George would end up on the Los Angeles Clippers, so any TV tampering wasn’t quite worth it.
Watch the love and the laughs via the video above.