Your respect for Larry Bird just increased
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...jordans-cooler
In 1998, Larry Bird coached Michael Jordan in the All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden. The next year he published a book with Jackie MacMullan called "Bird Watching: On Playing and Coaching the Game I Love." More than a dozen years after the fact, allow me to point out the book is fascinating and fun to read, and includes this anecdote from the "Space Jam" set: Quote:
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Well, you know what they say...burritos are a girl's best friend.
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I don't respect him for that. A black man can't have stuff just for him? He has to share it? **** that. Let the racism commence!
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"Alot of black guys will come up to me and say 'was Larry Bird really that good?!' and I tell them 'Man, Larry Bird......was so good it was frightening.'"
-Magic Johnson (the quote above appears very early in the clip below) <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ULvo7__wwBU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
Bird knew he wouldn't parish for opening a cooler.
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Bird was awesome. Great shooter and rebounder, but his passing set him apart. Tough badass, too. Didn't take any crap.
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Gotta love Bird. Only guy that could Havlicek and eat it too.
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Birdman does not give a ****; love him. The Bird/Magic documentary was a really good view IMHO.
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Then I watched a game and lost that appreciation. |
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LMAO |
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H_RJ5XN8TK8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Here is another video of that play, with Bird talking about it 25 years later.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DlmRIoHxPC8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
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"I seen DJ coming"
What a hick, lol. |
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Bird was about the only opponent that came into the "roundhouse" and could shut us fans up, and make us gawk in awe. He was amazing.
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You all disappoint me.
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According to many who played against him, he was quite a trash talker too. I remember hearing about a game he played (against the Knicks if I'm not mistaken) where he put up his first shot of the game, which was a three pointer. He shot right in front of the Knicks bench and as the ball left his hands and was still in the air, he turned to the opposing coach and said "you better get somebody that can guard me", then the ball swished through the net...that's just gross!
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The golden age of basketball. It's starting to get that good again.
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-Larry Legend (Bird) was well known for his competitive fire and high bball IQ, but it is rare that people expose Larry as one of the NBA`s alltime greatest smack talkers. Stories have been told of Larry pointing out the spots on the court he was going to score from, BEGGING his defender to "try and make it tough on me this time" Then he would dribble to that spot and stick the jumper in the defenders face. I remember Rodman telling a story about Larry`s trash talk---
"I would be all over him, trying to deny him the ball, and all Larry was doing was yelling at his teammates, I`M OPEN!!! HURRY UP BEFORE THEY NOTICE NOBODY IS GUARDING ME!!!!!!!" then he would stick an elbow in my jaw and stick the jumper in my face, then he would start in on my coach"Coach you better get this guy out and send in somebody who`s going to D me up, becuase its too easy when I`m wide open like this" -Larry Bird trash talk moment in a game against Seattle. He told Xavier McDaniel where he'd score from, got the ball, and scored with 2 seconds left on the clock. He said, "Damn! I didn't mean to leave any time left on the clock." - During one game on Christmas Day against the Indiana Pacers, before the game Bird told Chuck Person that he would give him a Christmas present. During the game, when Person was on the bench, Bird shot a three-pointer on the baseline right in front of Person. Immediately after the shot, Bird said to Person, "Merry Christmas!", and then the shot went in - During the three-point shooting contest on All-Star Weekend 1986, Bird came in, started looking around without saying a word, then finally said "I'm just looking around to see who's gonna finish up second." He indeed won the shooting contest - In a game against the Seattle SuperSonics with the game all tied up, Bird told Supersonics forward Xavier McDaniel, who was guarding him, exactly where he would hit the game winning shot. After a timeout, Bird made two baseline cuts, then posted in the exact spot he had indicated to McDaniel, paused and turned and hit the shot in his face. - On a night in 1984 versus Philadelphia where Larry Bird was outscoring Julius Erving by a margin of 42–6, he continuously informed Erving of their tallies every chance he got, which resulted in first a shoving match, then swings taken by both players and culminated in a bench-clearing brawl Xavier McDaniel Story of Larry Bird I remember Shawn Kemp was guarding Larry Bird one night, and during the time out, Shawn shared Bird’s comment. On the last three-pointer, Larry Shot in Kemp’s face and he said, ‘I’m the best damn player from Indiana.’ We ended up hearing this story during the time out and started laughing. He was on fire that night; he ended up with 50-plus points. (Shawn Kemp, for those that don't know, is from Elkart, Indiana) |
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I never detected much Bias in coverage of Bird.... (too soon?)
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Bird was so active with the ball... he was constantly pass and pump faking guys out of their shoes.
One annoying thing is that people seem to think of Bird as a 3 point shooter when he really wasn't. Yeah, he was really good at it. He scored most of his points in the post. I loved how he would 'bat' passes to guys. You don't see that much anymore. |
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Am I the only one who imagined them opening the cooler and seeing the girl inside?
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That was the only time in my life I have been a bandwagon fan. To be perfectly honest it was because the Celtics had a handful of white guys that could really play. Black guys just dominated the sport. Right or wrong that was the reason I started following Boston and the NBA for that matter. I found myself reading the newspaper, catching highlights and watching the games when I could. I never really watched the NBA growing up. I followed football and boxing, the two sports I was pretty good at.
In high school I would play pickup games with several black guys I knew from the football team and the guys that played varsity basketball for our high school. I would marvel at how damn much better they were than I was. The boys and girls both went unbeaten one year, there was not a white starter on the team. It was really cool to see white guys play at the top level and do well. Not long after Bird retired I lost my interest in the game again. I would still watch the Bulls when they were winning titles from time to time, because Jordan was simply amazing. Slowly I just stopped watching all together. Those highlights bring a smile to my face, it was a fun time~ |
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Joking aside, you're not the only one. To this day, the Celtics are looked at as the white man's team, while the Lakers are the black man's. |
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I really don't know. I was a baby in 1981 so I didn't get to see his earliest years. By the time I started watching he was already a legend. |
bird was perfect example of john woodens "Be quick, but don't hurry"
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...Bird was great even before you could take 4 steps without being called for traveling...
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X-Man: "he said he's gonna get the ball right here, and I'm gonna shoot the ball right in your face" <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F6sLMupoQLQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> "I'm just trying to see who's gonna finish second." <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1vHEWOqdyTg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
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Doc Rivers (before he was the C's coach), among others, talking about when Bird dropped 60 on the Hawks. One of the sickest shooting displays you'll ever see. You'll also see the Hawks players on the bench reacting -- laughing and such -- to his crazy shots going in.
Coach Fratello after the game: "it's one thing to be in awe, it's another to root for the other team" <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6iFhNi9t4L4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> longer clip of Bird destroying the Hawks that night. Watch the absurd shots at 4:10 seconds (and the Hawks bench reaction), then at the 5:00 mark, <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Rto2_oYVs0I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
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Cry, snivel, whine! |
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