Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals

What a lovely and well done documentary. I didn't plan to watch it all but the story just made me sit back and soak it all in. I wish I could have seen these two play. I started following the sport when I saw Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls.

If you grew up watching basketball in the 80's then you knew all about the Magic v. Bird rivalry. My brother is a Lakers fan to this day because of Magic and the Showtime Lakers, and I'm sure there are many Celtics fans out there because of Bird.

This documentary chronicles their upbringing and their rivalry that began in college. There are interviews from pros, fans, and analysts about the two. Their rivalry may have been exaggerated for the sake of the NBA, but it wasn't a myth, and the world benefited as a result.

If you are fan of these two great basketball players and want to know more about them and their lifes this is a really good one to get that. You will end understanding how great was that era with these two legends and how amazing they were.

Well, this basketball documentary about Bird & Magic tries another approach than the amazing, fantastic, incredible comments from the NBA production. Here, it's more psychological with less highlights and more interviews! But, finally, I found it boring and as much « false » : it's like basketball which is a team sport can be reduced to only one player, even if he has extraordinary skills. All the more i must say that Magic exhausts me with his constant smile and laughs and i prefer without hesitation Bird who does his job and quits. The documentary is however interesting about their early career (rare footages) and make understand how those 2 players just fit with their city. Just imagine if Bird had played in LA and Magic in Boston ??? The other thing that we can understand is how their competitiveness and thirst for victories can never be quenched !!!

As a basketball fan and knowing that HBO does an excellent job with documentaries, I had high expectations for this, and it certainly didn't disappoint.

Born in 1981, I never fully appreciated the rivalry as it was happening, but this certainly put it in perspective. It covers every intricacy of both the rivalry and the two men as individuals. After viewing it I'm not sure that there is any story in the history of sports that's as unique and special as Bird and Magic.

It started in 1979 with the NCAA championship and continued on to the NBA for several years.

On one hand you have Bird, the introverted type-A personality from Indiana; on the other you have Magic, the happy-go-lucky extrovert. The two men couldn't be more different personality-wise. So naturally in the early stages of the rivalry they had every reason to dislike each other. Yet as things progressed and as they found out more about each other, the relationship softened. For all their differences, they were eerily similar on the court and because of that there was a deep-rooted respect. Things really started to change when they got together to shoot a commercial for Converse at Bird's home in Indiana. And when Magic first announced he had HIV, Bird was one of the first people to reach out to him. It's obvious how much that meant to Magic.

I believe that every professional athlete can learn so much from both of these guys. The respect they have for the game and for each other represents the greatness of sports. It's really what it's all about and this documentary captures it like nothing else I've ever seen. Brilliantly done.

I also found it amazing how much pain Bird was in during the latter stages of his career. Yet he kept toughing it out game after game, season after season. You'd be hard pressed to find any one who'd do that in today's game.