Our first guest is an entrepreneur, a philanthropist,
and one of the greatest players in NBA history.
He's also part owner of the now world champion Los Angeles
Dodgers.
Please welcome Magic Johnson.
How you doing, Ellen?
I'm good, I'm good.
I would say how are you, but I know how you are.
Congratulations, the Dodgers won the World Series.
32 years.
It took us a long time, but I was actually
a part of 32 years ago, when my Lakers won the NBA
championship, and the Dodgers won in 1988.
And now, just winning this year again,
both teams, it was great for the city.
And I'm so happy for Clayton Kershaw, all the Dodger
players and all the Dodgers fans all over the world.
I mean did you think after years of playing basketball
you'd get a World Series ring?
I was hoping so.
Yeah.
You know, we went to the World Series two other times
and we lost, so I was like, man I hope I get one in.
The team was fabulous and fantastic.
Once we made the trade for Mookie Betts,
that really made us a championship team.
And all the credit goes to all the guys and our manager Dave
Roberts.
It was just an incredible moment for all the Dodger players,
but all the Dodger fans too.
It was great for baseball, and I'm just
happy to be one of the owners of the Dodgers.
Yeah, well congratulations.
And listen, we really needed some other good news in 2020,
so that was something that everybody could celebrate.
As you said, the Lakers won the NBA championship,
and you had a big part of getting LeBron on the team,
right?
Yes, I was president of the Lakers at that time
and met with LeBron and his agent, Rich Paul,
and convinced him to come play for the Lakers.
And it was really great, because LeBron promised a championship,
and he delivered on his promise to all Laker fans.
And it was really, again, a whole bubble
was created by commissioner Adam Silver.
The Lakers went down there on a mission,
they dedicated the season to Kobe Bryant
and his beautiful daughter, who both passed away.
And so they made Kobe very proud in heaven,
and I'm sure he was just so happy at what the boys did
in terms of finish their business,
winning the NBA championship.
And you know we still miss him all basketball fans all Laker
fans we still miss Kobe Bryant, we love him.
And I just hope his wife and his other daughters are doing fine.
Yeah, well we all miss him.
He was really a special man, and I know that you were obviously
very close.
What is one of your favorite memories with Kobe?
I think just winning all the championships.
And I tell you what happened, I told him
when we faced the Boston Celtics,
when we won our last championship.
And the year before we had lost to the Boston Celtics
in the finals, I told him the hardest championship
you would ever win is beating the Boston Celtics.
So right after we won that game 7, he hugged me
And said "Man, Magic, you were right."
It's so difficult to beat these Boston Celtics,
because they never beat themselves.
And we have so many great moments
like that just us, him and I together,
talking about business, talking about life,
talking about being husbands, being fathers.
And I enjoyed every single moment just talking to Kobe.
And also to see him enjoy retirement, and see him
and be creative in creating content, winning an Oscar.
And so doing the things that he was able to do
was amazing off the court.
And then working with women's sports
in terms of basketball players, training them,
whether they were high school, college, or WNBA.
And last but not least, giving back to homelessness,
and he wanted to make sure that he created housing for those
who didn't have a house.
That was his passion.
God is so good to have put Kobe in my life,
so I thank him for that.
Well, you are doing a lot of really amazing things, too,
during this pandemic.
You're helping small businesses that are having a hard time.
Tell everybody what you're doing.
Yeah, my company, EquiTrust, we put up $325 million
for minority owned small business owners,
because that program that the federal government had did not
trickle down to the Black and Brown community.
And women owned businesses, as well.
So I wanted to make sure we were able to provide capital
for them to keep their doors open,
and keep their employees, which was very, very important.
And we've saved twenties of thousands of businesses,
and I'm so happy that we were able to do that, Especially
with this pandemic going on.
Yeah, we have to all support small businesses.
We have to do that.
We're going to take a break, and we're
going to meet a local small business owner.
And you're going to stick around to help surprise him,
because he is a huge fan of yours,
and this guy is incredible.
So we'll be right back.
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel,
so you can see more awesome videos,
like videos of me getting scared, or saying
embarrassing things like ball peen hammer.
And also some videos of Ellen and other celebrities,
if you're into that sort of thing.