Johnson declined to talk for this story through a spokesperson for his company, Magic Johnson Enterprises. A Heat spokesperson said that Riley was not doing any interviews at this time. So I called Lon Rosen, Johnson’s long-time agent, and what greeted me on the other end of the phone, before I could even get out my question, was hearty laughter. “He did not try to arrange a trade,” Rosen said when he stopped laughing. “That did not happen. Something else happened but more of a friendship thing between Pat and Earvin and a driver hearing them talk. How’s that? It was never going to happen.”