[nyplayer33]

yes the great white player stands out..was a great scorer..but isnt kobe and lebron much better all around players then bird

[lakerboy]

Bird was way overrated. He was a good player for sure but he gets a lot of credit for helping turn the league around but in reality magic did that all by himself. Those boston teams had a hofer at evry spot.

[d2bets]

Bird was way overrated. He was a good player for sure but he gets a lot of credit for helping turn the league around but in reality magic did that all by himself. Those boston teams had a hofer at evry spot.

His stats speak for themselves. He did everything. I don't think people realize he even averaged 10 rebounds per game. And he scored at a high rate while shooting a high percentage. Inly thing you can say is his NBA career was only like 10-11 seasons, not real long.

[nyplayer33]

was a bad athlete..coulnt run worth the crap

[d2bets]

yes the great white player stands out..was a great scorer..but isnt kobe and lebron much better all around players then bird

He averaged 10 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.8 blocks. Bryant is 5.3, 4.8, 1.5 and 0.5. Bird averaged higher in every single category. The only category Bryant is higher is PPG by 1.2 points but Bird shot almost 50% while Bryant is 45%.

[no1here]

Larry Bird was great!

[VegasInsider]

He averaged 10 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.8 blocks. Bryant is 5.3, 4.8, 1.5 and 0.5. Bird averaged higher in every single category. The only category Bryant is higher is PPG by 1.2 points but Bird shot almost 50% while Bryant is 45%.

This.

Bird made everyone around him better. Kobe demanded you were better and if you weren't, you got shipped out of LA.

Bird was the definition of team player. Kobe can't spell team.

No question that Kobe is an all-time great, not debating that. However, he's an elite scorer and does everything OK. Bird was a great rebounder, had great court vision (just like Magic) and had the innate ability to know what was going to happen before it did. Kind of like Gretzky.

[Regul8er]

Different eras....can't compare him with Kobe and MJ. Doesn't the fact that he was a below average athlete who could barely jump over a phone book make his numbers and accomplishments that much more unreal?

[d2bets]

Different eras....can't compare him with Kobe and MJ. Doesn't the fact that he was a below average athlete who could barely jump over a phone book make his numbers and accomplishments that much more unreal?

Half os his era overlapped with MJ, so it's strange to say he was a different era from MJ. Jordan joined the league only 5 years after Bird. There are different ways to skin a cat. That he wasn't a superior athlete doesn't change what he accomplished on the court.

[Big Bear]

could Cody Zeller be the next great white player?

[tigerblood2007]

Bird was way overrated. He was a good player for sure but he gets a lot of credit for helping turn the league around but in reality magic did that all by himself. Those boston teams had a hofer at evry spot.

1) Hard to overrate a 3 time in a row MVP.
2) Magic did NOT turn the league by himself, that's silly.
3) Lakers had HOFers at each position too and BETTER players than Bird had.

[tigerblood2007]

was a bad athlete..coulnt run worth the crap

Laughably inaccurate.

[Dr. Gambler]

He averaged 10 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.8 blocks. Bryant is 5.3, 4.8, 1.5 and 0.5. Bird averaged higher in every single category. The only category Bryant is higher is PPG by 1.2 points but Bird shot almost 50% while Bryant is 45%.

Larry was great..winner also

[Swinging Johnson]

Is Larry Bird overrated you say? Is a random act of kindness by a complete stranger overrated? Maybe you believe the very first words uttered by a toddler to the delight of her parents to be overrated. Perhaps a cold lemonade underneath the shade of a willowy oak tree on a hot summer's day is overrated. Or finally, the coquettish grin of a blonde haired blue eyed honey that you swore wouldn't look in your direction sends your pulse racing and dries your throat.

Overrated, well maybe to you but to me I'd say Larry Bird was about the most handsome brand of ugly I've ever seen both in appearance and style on the hardwood. Overrated you suggest - blasphemy I cry!

[crustyme]

Bird was way overrated. He was a good player for sure but he gets a lot of credit for helping turn the league around but in reality magic did that all by himself. Those boston teams had a hofer at evry spot.

snorting gasoline fumes at work leads to brain damage.

[SBR_John]

Wouldnt say over rated. He wasn't as athletic as a Lebron or as quick as Bryant. But he was smarter than both put together. The inbounds pass steal and pass for a layup with .5 seconds to go to steal the NBA Championship from the Lakers was one of the best plays in the history of any sport.

[ChalkyDog]

Underrated.

[You mad bro]

snorting gasoline fumes at work leads to brain damage.

so you are saying you work at a gas station?

[eidolon]

Bird and Lebron are total opposites when it comes to basketball. One was all heart and smarts, while the other is a super freakishly athletic and strong.

[I/O]

I might screw this up but it's from way back.

Xavier McDaniel was being interviewed. He was asked about players in the league or just asked directly about Larry Bird. He told a story about a game with Boston. Game close or tied I believe about to end. Boston comes down the court calls a time out to write up a last shot play. Bird turns to the X Man and tells him, "We are gonna come out of the time out, I'm gonna get the ball, and make it from right here (pointing to court, off side, top of the lane)". Walks off the court. Time out ends. Bird makes the shot. Game over.

[Giroux]

Is Larry Bird overrated you say? Is a random act of kindness by a complete stranger overrated? Maybe you believe the very first words uttered by a toddler to the delight of her parents to be overrated. Perhaps a cold lemonade underneath the shade of a willowy oak tree on a hot summer's day is overrated. Or finally, the coquettish grin of a blonde haired blue eyed honey that you swore wouldn't look in your direction sends your pulse racing and dries your throat.

Overrated, well maybe to you but to me I'd say Larry Bird was about the most handsome brand of ugly I've ever seen both in appearance and style on the hardwood. Overrated you suggest - blasphemy I cry!

Cannot say it better than that.

[koz-man]

This.

Bird made everyone around him better. Kobe demanded you were better and if you weren't, you got shipped out of LA.

Bird was the definition of team player. Kobe can't spell team.

No question that Kobe is an all-time great, not debating that. However, he's an elite scorer and does everything OK. Bird was a great rebounder, had great court vision (just like Magic) and had the innate ability to know what was going to happen before it did. Kind of like Gretzky.

Excellent points.

[guitarjosh]

I might screw this up but it's from way back.

Xavier McDaniel was being interviewed. He was asked about players in the league or just asked directly about Larry Bird. He told a story about a game with Boston. Game close or tied I believe about to end. Boston comes down the court calls a time out to write up a last shot play. Bird turns to the X Man and tells him, "We are gonna come out of the time out, I'm gonna get the ball, and make it from right here (pointing to court, off side, top of the lane)". Walks off the court. Time out ends. Bird makes the shot. Game over.

I remember another instance where Boston was down 2 points at the end of the game. Boston calls timeout to make a play for Bird. They inbound the pass to Bird, and he nails a 3, but Boston had called TO right before the ball was inbounded. So, they do basically the same play, and again, Bird nails a 3 at the buzzer.

[lakerboy]

Hero to white nba fans though.

[I/O]

fwiw

Bird said he had never saw a check. Never had any idea how much he made. Just played.

off the floor.....

I do think it was completely shitty of him to basically ignore a girl he had with some woman during his career. I don't think he even recognized her till she was in her late teens or twenties. Worse than that though, she looked like him.

High-profile white athletes have certainly had their share of paternity cases. Larry Bird is an out-of-wedlock father who has not sought a close relationship with his child. In 1975, after enrolling at Indiana State, Bird married his high school sweetheart, Janet Condra. They divorced on Oct. 31, 1976, but on Aug. 14, 1977, Janet gave birth to a daughter, Corrie. Initially Bird denied he was the father and rejected Janet's request for $40 a week in support. But he admitted paternity after a blood test and, before his rookie season with the Celtics, in 1979, agreed to set up an account from which monthly support checks could be drawn until Come turned 18.
Now a 20-year-old junior at Indiana State majoring in elementary education, Corrie is unmistakably her father's daughter, from her aquiline nose to her penetrating eyes to her sandy blonde hair. With prodding, she even confesses to having a reliable outside shot. But what she doesn't have, and what she has wanted for two decades, she says, is a relationship with Bird that goes beyond physical resemblance and financial support. "When I was younger, I would send him letters, and my mom would send him my school pictures and report cards," she says. "We would send them certified mail to make sure he received them, but he just didn't respond."
When Bird took the Pacers' coaching job last spring and moved just an hour from his daughter's apartment, Corrie was optimistic that their relationship would improve. "I went to see the Pacers play earlier this season, and I went down to talk to Dinah [Bird's wife of eight years] and see their kids. [He] looked over and saw me holding [Bird's daughter, five-year-old] Mariah, but he just kind of smiled awkwardly. I didn't get to talk to him, though."
Corrie grew up with the ability to separate Larry Bird the basketball player from Larry Bird the absent father. Her bedroom was a shrine to Bird, its walls covered with clippings, posters and Celtics memorabilia. (Even now, Corrie's black Ford bears a newly attached Pacers license-plate bracket.) When Corrie made the basketball team at Northview High in Brazil, Ind., her choice of uniform number 33 was an easy one. "It sounds corny, but it kind of made me feel closer to him when I played," she says. "I put one of his old high school jerseys in my gym bag as a good-luck charm."

[tigerblood2007]

Hero to white nba fans though.

Maybe so...my favorite player at that time was Bernard until Ewing came...and I'm white, but to say Bird is overrated is absurd, at best.

[seaborneq]

Bird's game was easy to underappreciate, not flashy, not dominating, and above all else very efficient. The results don't lie. Very few players who were not true centers averaged 25 points, 10+ rebounds, and 5+assist in a season, with a very high fg% and extremely high ft% and unreal 3 pt%. Numbers never lie. Plus doing those stats while winning championships and going to the Finals against Magic/Kareem or conference Finals against Dr J./Isaiah Thomas from 1979-89 is all I need to know. What if..................Bird didn't have to compete against two of the top 3 winners of all time during that stretch. Bird has three rings, but Kareem and MJ have 6 and Magic 5. What kind of decade does Bird have if he plays Iceman or Portland in the Finals instead of the Lakers, and Indiana and Milwaukee in the conference finals instead of Detroit and Philadelphia. It wouldn't be far fetched to see 7-8 rings, and 5-6 mvp's. Definitely higher on the all time list and neck and neck with Magic and getting in a stare down with MJ.

[InTheDrink]

Bird was way overrated. He was a good player for sure but he gets a lot of credit for helping turn the league around but in reality magic did that all by himself. Those boston teams had a hofer at evry spot.

lol the lakers werent talented huh? magic was the best player on the team at the time but the second best career of the gueys he played with

not even debatable

magic was better than bird but lets not act like theres 10 gueys in between them historically

[lakerboy]

lol the lakers werent talented huh? magic was the best player on the team at the time but the second best career of the gueys he played with

not even debatable

magic was better than bird but lets not act like theres 10 gueys in between them historically

i did not say magic was not talented. ainge/dj/parrish/nchale. those guys were awesome. twin towers on defense. drinker were you watching the nba back then? the lakers had to overcome so much to beat that celts team.

[InTheDrink]

i did not say magic was not talented. ainge/dj/parrish/nchale. those guys were awesome. twin towers on defense. drinker were you watching the nba back then? the lakers had to overcome so much to beat that celts team.

say what about magic? youre saying that the lakers didnt stack up

worthy, kareem, cooper (best d player in the league), byron scott and other than the couple years walton was healthy a much better bench

and obviously a better coach once riles was on board

[gauchojake]

One of the greatest ever and a perfect foil to the Showtime era Lakers. Also one of the top trash talkers of all time.

[Fidel_CashFlow]

whoa hold the fukk up

did someone just ask if Larry Bird from Frenchlick Indiana was overrated ?

[eidolon]

I might screw this up but it's from way back.

Xavier McDaniel was being interviewed. He was asked about players in the league or just asked directly about Larry Bird. He told a story about a game with Boston. Game close or tied I believe about to end. Boston comes down the court calls a time out to write up a last shot play. Bird turns to the X Man and tells him, "We are gonna come out of the time out, I'm gonna get the ball, and make it from right here (pointing to court, off side, top of the lane)". Walks off the court. Time out ends. Bird makes the shot. Game over.

[Grits n' Gravy]

Anyone who said yes needs to stop watching sports because you are mentally fukking retarded.

He'd be as good today as he was in his prime.

[Microphone]

Bird=Clutch

He elected to stay in the Garden after practice and work on free throws (which he is one of the best all time) realizing their value. In this era, as soon as practice is over, it's off to the studios to film some rap video.

One of my favorite Bird games, with the Yankees John Sterling on the call: