A transcendent NBA superstar was forced into retirement by the league in the 1990s, to keep up appearances and put the lid on a scandal.

No, not Michael Jordan and gambling. That's ridiculous.

But Magic Johnson is HIV negative and always has been.

I think he got a false positive test, and then time stopped. It's hard to overstate how big of a deal Magic's retirement was at the time - one of the 4 greatest players in NBA history, struck down in his prime. One of those Kennedy assassination "Where were you?" moments.

A few weeks later, I believe he got retested and got a clean bill of health. But by then the needle had moved and couldn't be pushed back. The NBA had almost immediately adopted a new infection protocol: bleed on the court, and now you can't play again until the wound is stanched. Karl Malone famously said he'd be afraid to guard Magic. And Magic himself had transformed from a legendary player into something even bigger: a symbol. A crusader. The Brave Face of Heterosexual AIDS.

The NBA had too much riding on this to say, "You know what? Our bad. Turns out Magic's fine to play again. The Lakers can reactivate him tomorrow if they want."

Magic himself even dropped the façade, briefly. In an interview with NBC News a couple of years later, the interviewer asked Magic and his wife in a roundabout way if they ever had sex. Magic and his wife giggled, and she basically volunteered that yes, but they always use condoms. Bullshit. There isn't a person in the world who will knowingly have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner. Of course, the interviewer didn't press the issue.