NBA legend Magic Johnson is one of the most famous basketballers to ever suit up in a Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL uniform.<\/p>\n
Back in November 2002, during a United States exhibition tour, the five-time NBA champion and three-time MVP famously suited up for the NBL’s Canberra Cannons against Johnson’s former college side, the Michigan State Spartans.<\/p>\n
The fixture all came to fruition, thanks to NBL legend Cal Bruton’s relationship with Johnson, which started when the two-time NBL champion was at the Perth Wildcats.<\/p>\n
A subsequent business trip to the US then allowed him to forge a relationship with the former Los Angeles Laker, who, years later, called Bruton (then in charge of the Cannons) when a European team had pulled out of an exhibition game.<\/p>\n
“That’s when he [Johnson] contacted me and said, could I raise the money to bring a team here. I couldn’t say no. I just had to find a way to get the money. I think we had three weeks, that’s all we had,” Bruton said to the Canberra Times in 2002.<\/p>\n
Behind jersey auctions and other fundraisers, Bruton raised the money, and the tour was on.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore you knew it, we were off on a whirlwind tour of the US,\u201d Bruton said.<\/p>\n
The Cannons won the fixture 104-85, with Johnson recording 12 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
But as NBL legend Cal Bruton, who was pivotal in making the fixture happen, said to the Canberra Times, this was about more than numbers.<\/p>\n
“For us to create an opportunity to connect us with the NBA was absolutely huge, and potentially a game-changer for Australian basketball. In the end, it was that,” Bruton said to the Canberra Times in 2002.<\/p>\n
Re-live that magic moment in NBL history below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u200d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA legend Magic Johnson is one of the most famous basketballers to ever suit up in a Hungry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-670139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670139","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=670139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}