{"id":112726,"date":"2025-09-02T08:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112726\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T08:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:24:07","slug":"wed-play-basketball-on-sundays-kareem-abdul-jabbar-recalls-hooping-with-young-michael-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112726\/","title":{"rendered":"“We’d play basketball on Sundays” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recalls hooping with young Michael Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Basketball fans know a lot about the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a>, but not all of them know that he and Michael Jackson<\/a> used to hang out when they were young. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he even played basketball with Jackson.<\/p>\n

Kareem was a college player at UCLA when he got the chance to meet the Jackson brothers. He knew them through a common friend of his and Michael’s dad, who would let the Jacksons hoop with him on Sundays.<\/p>\n

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At the time, Michael was already quite busy with his music. Fortunately for him, his dad’s and Abdul-Jabbar’s common friend allowed them to have some time off and do recreational activities such as basketball.<\/p>\n

“I knew Michael [Jackson], not very well, but I knew Michael,” the NBA Hall of Famer revealed<\/a> on “Conversations with Tyler” in 2016.\u00a0“On Sundays \u2014 this was while I was going to UCLA \u2014 he would take them to a gym, and we’d play basketball, and then he’d treat me to brunch. So, it was a good deal for me, and I got to know the Jacksons. Great kids.”<\/p>\n

Kareem admired Michael Jackson<\/p>\n

At one point, Abdul-Jabbar and Jackson’s basketball bonding ended unsurprisingly. Kareem led UCLA to three remarkable NCAA titles and became the country’s best college player.<\/p>\n

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In 1969, Lew was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks as the No. 1 overall pick and the rest, as they say, is history. On the other hand, Jackson grew up to become his group’s most recognizable figure and voice, “The Jackson 5.”<\/p>\n

As Abdul-Jabbar made waves in the NBA, Michael’s music career flourished as well. He evolved into a solo artist and ultimately became one of the greatest pop singers of his generation.<\/p>\n

As he reflected on Michael’s life and career, Kareem couldn’t help but feel bad about the controversies. However, KAJ reckoned that as far as talent and legacy goes, “The King of Pop” was not overrated.<\/p>\n

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“Oh, I think Michael Jackson certainly deserves all the credit he got,” Abdul-Jabbar added. “He was an incredible performer.”<\/p>\n

Related: “I said, ‘No, we’d rather you not take him if he’s there'” – Dell Curry admitted he had other plans for Stephen Curry on draft night<\/a><\/p>\n

Magic also bonded with Michael Jackson<\/p>\n

Abdul-Jabbar wasn’t the only NBA legend who had the opportunity to bond with Jackson. Even his running mate Magic Johnson, savored his time with the music icon.<\/p>\n

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As per Johnson, he and Michael filmed one of his music videos. He will never forget the epic moment they shared over a bucket of KFC chicken<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The guy raised the lid, bam! Other person comes out with his, raised the lid and it’s a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken! I start screaming, ‘Michael, you eat Kentucky Fried Chicken?!’ Man, I said, ‘Hold up, I got to come down there and share that bucket with you.’ I went down there, we sat on the floor and tore that chicken up,” Magic once revealed.<\/p>\n

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Hooping with Kareem or sharing fried chicken with Magic didn’t define Jackson’s career, but those moments showed how icons often move in the same orbit. Basketball and music may be different worlds, but true greatness always finds common ground.<\/p>\n

Related: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recalls facing young Charles Barkley: “I was bruised and battered after it was over”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network<\/a> on Sep 2, 2025, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Basketball fans know a lot about the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but not all of them know that he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,57624,34411,19928,4620,85,80531],"class_list":["post-112726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","tag-magic-johnson","tag-michael-jackson","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-sports","tag-the-jackson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}