Chapter 925 - 2 Magic out_3

The reason for the medical examination was because Johnson’s contract was still worth $2.5 million per year, while other league superstars were already heading toward the tens of millions.

The extraordinarily long and large contract Johnson had signed back then was, in the face of inflation, gradually becoming a cheap deal.

To compensate Johnson, Buss decided to offer him a low-interest loan worth $3.6 million—giving him money directly would violate league rules, but loans were permitted and could later be deducted from the amounts in his future large contracts.

To get the loan, Johnson needed to have life insurance, and to get life insurance, he had to undergo a thorough medical examination, including a blood test.

The results came back, and the thing Johnson feared most had happened—he was indeed HIV-positive.

When he learned of the result, Johnson felt as if his entire body had been struck by a heavy blow, a numbness rendering him unable to speak.

Nevertheless, he suppressed his fear and uneasiness and called his wife, telling her over the phone that there was something he needed to tell her but couldn’t say on the phone, and that he’d explain when he got home.

Kelly was pregnant at the time, and she seemed to already have some sense of what was going on. When Johnson returned home, Kelly directly asked him, "Do you have AIDS?"

Johnson’s silence confirmed her suspicions. Kelly began to cry, not only worried for herself but even more for the child she carried.

Johnson later recalled, "Some people think the hardest moments of my life were on the court, facing Larry Bird or Ah Gan, but the reality is those were nothing—the hardest moment was going home to tell my wife I had AIDS."

Facing Kelly’s tears, Johnson told her she could leave him. Kelly slapped him in response, saying she wouldn’t leave but would stay by his side.

From this perspective, Johnson hadn’t chosen the wrong person to marry; the one who made the wrong choice was Kelly—but Johnson was already better off than many Black men.

After informing his wife, Johnson locked himself in a room and started making phone calls, dialing the women he’d had relationships with in the past.

His address book was filled with these names and numbers. Some of these women Johnson couldn’t even remember—who they were or when they had dated—but he called them one by one from memory, informing them he had AIDS and advising them to get tested.

One call followed another, and what greeted Johnson was inevitably anger, fear, pain, and a stream of endless future troubles—lawsuits were bound to come his way.

Afterward, Johnson made a call to his father in Lansing, informing him of the situation. He chose Saturday because his mother would be at church for worship and wouldn’t be home.

His father remained calm, telling Johnson, "This isn’t the end of the world. You can handle it."

As for his mother, upon learning the news, she immediately went to Los Angeles to be with her son. Despite intense anguish and anger in her heart, she still told her son, "This is God’s will. All of us will die of some disease. You won’t die until it’s your time."

After dealing with the emotions of family and friends, Johnson knew that everything had to go public.

He had already missed two weeks of practice, and the regular season was a week in. Johnson’s personal situation had become a topic of public concern.

Finally, on November 7, Johnson held a press conference, personally announcing that he had contracted HIV and would retire as a result.

The entire country was shocked; no one had expected Magic Johnson to retire this way, leaving the basketball stage alongside Larry Bird.

At this time, Gan Guoyang and the Portland Trail Blazers happened to be in Los Angeles for an away game. When they learned the news from the television, everyone was highly surprised.

Only Gan Guoyang appeared calm, thinking of his friend Raymond from San Francisco many years ago, who had died from AIDS long ago.

But AIDS was a death sentence for someone like Raymond, a poor man, whereas for someone like Johnson, a wealthy man, it wasn’t necessarily the same. It was now 1991, and research on AIDS had made great progress.

With enough money, while it couldn’t cure all diseases, many conditions could indeed be controlled, especially in America.

Gan Guoyang knew he had one less opponent in the Western Conference. Without Johnson, the era of the Los Angeles Lakers had come to an absolute end.

Although his relationship with Johnson was ordinary—they’d been rivals for years and didn’t get along—Gan Guoyang still felt a twinge of sadness over the sudden retirement of such an extraordinary player.

He suddenly wondered: When would his own era come to an end? Would it happen at fifty?