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Last year, she joined the Storm ownership group as a minority investor and in May was named the first managing director of the USA Basketball women’s team. On Sept. 5-6, Bird will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. “Basketball has given me more than I can ever give back, but like everyone before me, I’ve tried to leave it in a better place,” Bird said two weeks ago in Knoxville, Tenn., when she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. “I hope I’ve shown young girls they can be fierce competitors and gracious teammates. That they can be strong and vulnerable. That they can lead and listen. And that they can pursue their dreams relentlessly, while lifting others up along the way.”
On ESPN's special broadcast of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament featuring Bird and Diana Taurasi, they had Jalen Suggs as a guest and asked him who the most challenging matchup he's had to deal with in the NBA. Suggs mentioned the Warriors star, prompting Bird to say that Curry must be mentioned among the greatest to ever do it — a debate that mostly revolves around LeBron James and Michael Jordan. “He should be up there with LeBron and Jordan,” Bird said, via NBA on ESPN on X (formerly Twitter).
What many younger Celtics faithful may not recall is Cowens played his final Celtics season with Bird, and Boston lost to Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals. He said he immediately knew Bird would be a superstar. “Larry was just an exceptional talent offensively, just so creative and so into the game and quick thinking,” he said. “You talk about a guy that took advantage of opportunity and created opportunities as much as anyone who’s ever played. I thought he was a good athlete. People talk about how he wasn’t a good athlete. He was a hell of an athlete. He was quicker than a lot of guys. That first step was quick and that’s all you need. His handle was extraordinary for a guy his size. He was my size but he’s playing outside. “If Larry had to guard the guys I had to guard [centers], his career would have been different. I could never do what he did. I would never compare myself with him. He was always ready and you could see that right away. You know he was pretty special.”
Marques Johnson: In 1980, when Bird came into the league, things were different. The league was 99% Black, there was widespread cocaine abuse, and they needed something—a 'white superstar,' or what they called back then, ‘The Great White Hope.’ That same year, the Bucks drafted Kent Benson at number one. I was drafted number three. Benson didn’t pan out, but Bird’s rookie year, he was named First-Team All-Pro—one of the few rookies to ever achieve that. The thing is, I was First-Team All-Pro the year before when the players voted. But when Bird came in, they changed it. They took the voting away from the players and gave it to the media. That was cold, man. My coach, Don Nelson—who was a former Boston Celtic—told me, ‘Instead of averaging 26 points a game like last year, give me 20 points.’ So I averaged 20-21 points, and I got bumped off First-Team All-Pro by Bird. The media voting played a big role in that. Now, Bird himself admitted that during his rookie year, he wasn’t one of the best forwards in the league. He was just happy to be acknowledged as an All-Star. But here’s the kicker: that year, Adrian Dantley averaged 28 points per game and didn’t make First-Team All-Pro as a forward. It was a different era, man.
Bird returned to Terre Haute, Indiana — home of Indiana State University — and answered questions from reporters after the ribbon-cutting for the brand new Larry Bird Museum inside the convention center. The festivities started just after 10:30 a.m. outside, in downtown Terre Haute. Bird kept his remarks to the public brief, to about two minutes. But he started and closed with heartfelt words. “I want to thank everyone that had anything to do with putting this museum together,” said Bird, 67. “I know it's not easy. Takes a lot of time, a lot of people, but I think you'll enjoy it. “I know there'll be thousands of young kids come through there. And like I always say, if just one of them gets a feeling to do something, not only in basketball, but other sports, and is successful at it, it's done its job. “There's so many things in there that brings back memories. You go from Indiana State, then to Boston, then to coaching, then the front office. So there's just so many things to look at and I'm very proud to just be a small part of it.”
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The Knicks are limited in how much they can offer Isaiah Hartenstein. Why? How does it work? Because Hartenstein, who will become an unrestricted free agent this summer, signed a two-year contract with the Knicks in 2022, the team is now capped at how much it can pay to bring him back for next season. The two-year deal means they have only Early Bird rights, not Full Bird rights, which accrue when a player has been with a team for three or more seasons. The Knicks can bring Hartenstein back, but they cannot offer a starting salary greater than 175 percent of his previous season’s pay.
The Indiana State University and Boston Celtics great addressed a public ceremony Thursday for the official opening of the Larry Bird Museum inside the Terre Haute Convention Center. After the ceremony, Bird took questions from the media, which he jokingly said might be his last interview. "I got a little street named after me, I got a statue out there and now a museum here," Bird said of the city, the home of Indiana State. "Thank you, Terre Haute, but I think that's enough for a while. You have no idea how much I respect the city and the people in it."
Bird, 67, is just as proud of the museum and all the work that went into it. The museum contains memorabilia from Bird's high school, college and NBA career, interactive exhibits and interviews with coaches, teammates and rivals. Bird led Indiana State to the 1979 NCAA championship game before losing to Magic Johnson-led Michigan State. "I think they got enough in there to keep everyone's interest," Bird said. "I think it's going to be good for the city and a lot of people will come through it." Bird said there are so many items that bring back memories of his career. Capital Improvement Board Museum Co-Chair Terri Conley said one thing Bird insisted on is the museum admission was free.
The Pacers big man shared with Pinson what it was like to be drafted by Bird and what their relationship is like. "People don't realize how big he is bro," Turner said, noting that Bird has an intimidating aura about him. Bird, of course, was a 12-time All-Star and is among the greatest players to be in the NBA.
When the Lakers matched up against the Celtics, Worthy was frequently in charge of guarding Bird, and he remembers one time when they were coming out of a timeout, and Bird immediately told him what play they were going to run and what would happen in the following moments. Obviously, that didn't sit well with Worthy, who didn't believe that was even possible, but soon he realized this was one of the reasons why Bird was an absolute legend of the game. "There were times he would come out of a timeout, and he did this with a lot of people. I had to guard him, you know the play is coming, and he told you the play was coming. With DJ handling, McHale is going to set up a flash pick for Robert, but that is only to free him up to set up a pick for me. He says, if you trail, I will go through the lane and shoot a little floater. If you pop, if you try to get over the top, I will pop to that corner and bust a jumper in your f**king face. I'm like, f**k you, I am all up on him, I had his shirt holding, and sure enough, the ball comes in; I am quick enough I think I can get over to the top, I get out there, but he pops to the corner, and he is waiting for me. He was an a**hole."
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Worthy said one of the most notorious Bird trash-talking stories is related to the three-point contest where Bird would frequently come to the locker room with all the contestants. With incredible confidence, Bird simply told them they were coming second behind him in the competition. That really happened, and his dominance in the competition was displayed several times in his career. "He used to hit the All-Star game for a few years and would go to the locker room, and all the three-point contestants would be over there, ready to walk out. He would walk in and was like, which one of yall was coming in second? And he would just walk out and win the damn thing. I didn't like him, but he was that good."
Per Cornbread, Maravich passed to Bird as the future star found himself quickly double-teamed. “We come to the timeout, and Pete Maravich says to Larry, ‘Larry, Larry, they’re double-teaming you,” said Maxwell. “‘You can’t force up those kind of shots.’ Larry looks up and goes, ‘If you were any damn good, they wouldn’t be double-teaming me.'” “This is one Hall of Famer to another,” he added. “I was in shock.”
The first international NBA broadcast took place seven years before Danilo was born, a Celtics-Lakers game featuring Bird broadcast from nearby Milan. There wasn’t much access to NBA footage in the ’90s in Italy, but Vittorio managed to get his hands on a few tapes of Bird to show to his son. Danilo would watch them over and over, trying to pick up everything he could as he eventually grew into a 6-foot-10 scoring forward in a similar vein to the man he was studying.
There were many memorable takeaways from the 1984 victory over the Lakers, but for me the everlasting memory is the entire evening of June 8, when because of a heat wave outside and lack of Boston Garden air conditioning inside, the temperature was 97 degrees for Game 5. The Lakers, most notably Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, thought they had been trapped in a science fiction movie, but Bird treated it like just another steamy summer evening in French Lick with 34 points, 17 rebounds, and 15-for-20 shooting. So sorry you young’uns missed out on Larry. 1986? I still believe it was the greatest pre-3-point-mania team ever. They won 67, and had they thought it was a good idea, they would have won 70. They were such a spectacular nightly show in the regular season that they rendered meaningless the concept of the meaningless game.
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