Earvin "
Magic"
Johnson Jr. (born August 14, 1959) is a retired American professional
basketball player who played
point guard for the
Los Angeles Lakers of the
National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and
college, Johnson was selected first overall in the
1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an
NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted
HIV, but returned to play in the
1992 All-Star Game, winning the
All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time.