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)