ONE OF THE greatest basketball players of all time, Magic Johnson, is sailing along the Croatian coast these days on a luxurious yacht, and his arrival on Sunday evening caused euphoria in Split.

Hundreds of fans gathered there, wanting to see the legend in person and take photographs with him. One day later, before Magic continued his journey, a young man took a photo in front of his yacht Aquila wearing Larry Bird's T-shirt, and the photograph published by Index Sport has quickly become a hit.

Older generations were delighted by the photograph, while it perhaps needed an explanation for the younger people. The relationship between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird is one of the best stories in 74-year-long NBA history. According to everything that has defined them, they were supposed to become the greatest rivals. Instead, they became great friends.

The Last Dance followed the journey of Michael Jordan, who started in the NBA League in 1984, and it culminated in winning his first title in 1991, and that was against Magic's LA Lakers. Jordan marked the 90s with the Bulls in the same way Bird did with the Celtics and Magic with the Lakers in the 80s.

Their rivalry started a few months before they both debuted in the NBA League in 1979, in the finals of the University NCAA League in which Johnson's Michigan State won against Bird's Indiana State by 75:64.

They divided eight out of ten NBA titles in the 80s

Although both were great high school and university stars, the last game they would play before becoming professionals was the first one where they encountered. Besides winning, Magic was the first point guard of the finals with 24 scores while Bird scored 19, and he also declared the best player of the final tournament. 

A few weeks later, the Lakers chose him as the first one on the draft, and Bird joined Boston, who drafted him as the sixth player a year earlier. Magic continued with his successes immediately in the first NBA season, and along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he was the key player of the Lakers on their path to the title. But Bird and the Celtics struck back the following year. So, with rare exceptions, they have been taking turns in winning titles for the whole decade. Magic and the Lakers won five, and Bird and the Celtics won three championship titles, and in the international finals, the Los Angeles franchise was better with the result 2:1.

Earvin and Larry weren't rivals just because they were the two best players of an era, but also because they played for two NBA clubs that won the most trophies in history, one on the east, and the other on the west coast of the USA; one was a symbol of the working class and the other a symbol of the Hollywood glamour. And there was also a difference in skin color...

In its beginning, the NBA was almost exclusively a white league, but up to the 80s, the black people became far more numerous. And with a few exceptions - even better. Bird became the Great White Hope.

Magic could do whatever he wanted. Bird would announce it first, and then do it

There was a reason that Johnson earned a nickname, which was much more recognizable than his name; what he was showing on the court was pure magic. He was a point guard with a height of 206 centimeters, something that hasn't been seen until then, and when Jabbar was absent, he also played the center. Bird was of identical height, but of completely different player profile, a scoring machine; he could score from whatever position he wanted, and in a way that he would announce to the point guard what he would do to him.

This duo in the two biggest clubs was absolutely the best that could happen to the NBA League, whose rating had been dangerously down. Those two, with the rise of Michael Jordan and the Bad Boys from Detroit, which people loved to hate, were exactly what the NBA needed; they eventually set out to conquer the world with an explosion made by the Dream Team's appearance in Barcelona. Thanks to them, the NBA League rating increased by as much as 42 percent in the 80s, most of all big American sports.

Everyone wanted to watch Magic vs. Bird games, and they played 37 of them (18 in the regular season, and 19 in the finals). They couldn't wait to play, and they didn't hide it.

They both monitored each other's statistical performance and tried to outperform it in the first following game.

And the rivalry itself connected them. This entire antagonistic surrounding was so exaggerated that one practically couldn't find himself in a sentence without the other one. It was just a matter of time when they would become involved in marketing.

The commercial shoot connected them; they bonded over lunch at Bird's mom

It happened in 1985 when Converse wanted to shoot a commercial with both of the players in Bird's hometown French Lick. Magic agreed to come, although he was awfully nervous because he had never talked to Bird before.

They didn't talk during the shooting, and they finally broke the ice during lunch

"His mom gave me the biggest hug and hello, and right then, she had me. Then Larry and I sat down for lunch, and I tell you, we figured out we're so much alike. We're both from the Midwest; we grew up poor, our families are everything to us, basketball is everything to us. So that changed my whole outlook on Larry Bird," Magic once told this story.

Their teammates couldn't believe that these two bonded, but they kept their edge when they played against each other. Their rivalry didn't suffer, the mutual respect and respect only additionally enriched it. 

How close they got is best illustrated with the fact that Bird was one of the rare people that Johnson called in 1991 before he was about to shock the world with his HIV diagnosis.

"We'd been connected to each other since college. We were always thinking about each other — what we were doing and how we were doing. I knew that he would want to know and also know from me. And I'm glad I was able to talk to Larry and let him know that I'm gonna be OK, and I knew he was going to be supporting me," Magic explained.

HIV was known to be a death sentence at the time, and Magic was saying that everything is going to be OK. As always, he was right

"It was probably one of the worst feelings you could ever imagine. At that time, HIV was known to be a death sentence. But for some reason, when he told me he was going to be fine, I believed him because everything he's ever said had really come to be true, as far as winning and winning championships," Bird told once.

And one more time, it turned out to be true. Almost three decades later, Magic is still alive and cheerful as he once was on the court, when the smile wasn't coming off his face. He's still connected to basketball as a Lakers' associate, and Bird is the head of Indiana Pacers. They are still friends, and they are connected by more than just basketball, a sport which should deepen the differences between them, but has actually brought them closer to each other.

Someone once wrote that the only better thing that could have happened to the NBA League in the 80s besides Magic himself or Bird himself are Magic and Bird together.

Johnson is sailing the Croatian coast without his old rival, but they were in the same scene in Split, at least for a little while. If not those two in person, then at least Magic's yacht and Bird's T-shirt.