Magic Johnson used to play basketball with professional wrestler Kevin Nash
August 8, 2012 in Professional
I freely admit that pro wrestling is still one of my guilty pleasures. So when I was reading this profile of native Detroiter and longtime professional wrestler Kevin Nash (aka Diesel aka Big Daddy Cool aka Big Sexy) by Grantland’s Thomas Golianopoulos, I was pretty excited to find a basketball connection that gave me an excuse to post the link here:
Nash was a top basketball recruit, and after his junior year at Aquinas High School he says he attended a basketball camp with Magic Johnson. The following year, they teamed on a Midwestern All-Star squad and defeated the Russian Junior National team in an exhibition. Every time they played together, Johnson told Nash to keep his hands up. “Early in the game, Magic came down the lane, I had my hands by my chin and all of a sudden, I had the ball in my hands,” Nash remembers. “If Magic Johnson was my point guard, I probably could have had a couple of scrub years in the NBA.”
Well, Nash wouldn’t be the first guy who parlayed playing next to Magic into a ‘couple of scrub years in the NBA.’