Marc Stein is a reporter for The New York Times and a recipient of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award in 2019. Stein remembers the biggest single game he’s ever covered, when MJ faced off with Magic Johnson in Los Angeles. “By the time I was covering the league, Michael had become more guarded with the media, so I never witnessed any of the great behind-the-scenes access from his first decade in the league to have the sort of stories Sam Smith, Peter Vecsey, or Jack McCallum could tell. But I will certainly never forget the night of Feb. 2, 1996. I was in my first season on the Laker beat for the Los Angeles Daily News. Magic Johnson had just come out of retirement and nearly posted a triple-double against Golden State in his first game back after almost five years away.