Magic Johnson played with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for 10 years and went to the NBA finals 8 times where they won 5 (Magic, who played for 13 seasons went to the Finals once more, after Kareem retired, to pass the torch to a certain Michael Jeffrey Jordan). Nobody called him a sidekick despite being paired with the greatest scorer the league has ever had who, just dominated the preceding decade by winning MVP 6 times (71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 80). Maybe it helped that Magic’s rivalry with Larry Bird was so captivating, it catapulted them as the face of the league.
Also, in their decade long partnership, Magic won 3 season MVPs and another 3 Finals MVP (Kareem won one of each, but nobody’s gonna call him sidekick)
If you think about it, the term sidekick were deemed appropriate, albeit unfairly, only during Scottie Pippen’s tenure with Michael Jordan. Nobody called Moses Malone a sidekick to Doctor J. There were no sidekicks in Boston, Detroit or Houston. There was an apprentice in San Antonio BUT when Tim Duncan became the focal point of the team, he didn’t mind sharing the spotlight to any teammate who played special enough to deserve the Finals MVP honors. Pippen’s consistent contribution to Da Bulls is difficult to deny, but can easily be overlooked since MJ is… Well, he’s MJ!
The sidekick title returned and gained a negative connotation back in LA when the Lakers were building a dynasty on the shoulders of Shaq and Kobe. At that time, the tag sidekick was akin to wearing a symbiote costume; Too strong to a point of villainy. With Kobe’s powers peaking, he may never be perceived as a top dog because there was a bigger dog in the yard. He has no interest to forge a Magic/Kareem partnership, besides, Shaq had both the charismatic personality of Magic and the prepotency of Jabbar. In this Los Angeles, as with the whole NBA in the new millennium, brand and billing can get in the way. Kobe opted to be branded as a villain just to get top billing. It worked.
Kyrie was on a similar plane. People around tried to frame his role as a closer to complement the King. There was a even that ridiculously calculated number of attempts that both split evenly to appease the closer who may have enjoyed the bounty of the partnership, but he was promised a kingdom, and this does not fit the narrative he envisioned for himself.
So this season he takes on an entirely different story line. In an era when players team up with or against the King, Kyrie sets himself up as the one to ascend the throne not as some heir in waiting, but as the one who will quest to vanquish the King of the east.
danDAman 