Larry Bird Turns 5-0
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Walt Frazier said Larry Bird saved the NBA. Frazier said that at the time Bird was drafted, you could buy an NBA franchise for $500grips.
That Bird alone saved the Association might be a stretch, because without Bird and Magic, the NBA wouldn't be what it is today. There was definitely a literal white-black component to the rivalry: Liberal La-La vs. Up South Boston. The all-black, fast break, run-and-fun, sexy blonde garden tools everywhere, Wes’ Siiiide(!), Showtime Lakes vs. the way-too-white, plodding, Tommy Heinsohn-screamin’, New England white clam chowder Beantown-bein’ in, hick-ass led Celtics. Diametrically-opposed the teams battled for supremacy of the Association
It made for perfect drama. One or both teams played for the NBA championship in each year of the 1980s. Their shadows over the Association was and is was so great that it seems like they played each other at least eight of those years when they met each other in the Finals only three times during those 10 years. The Lakes appeared in the Finals eight of those 10 years, winning a remarkable five times. The Cees appeared four times, winning three. Magic was the Finals’ MVP three times while Bird won two.
These two teams brought the NBA Finals from playing games that were shown tape-delayed games on National TV to a spectacle that was the most gripping two-week period of television in that medium’s history. These two teams were largely responsible for turning an unknown lawyer into the most powerful commissioner in sports. And they were responsible for allowing that owner to, for the first time, turn a sport from a team game to a player’s league. Yes, if not for Bird and Magic, Magic and Bird and the two teams they represented, there would also be no David Stern today.
Best quotes by and about Larry Bird:
“It doesn’t matter who scores the points, it’s who can get the ball to the scorer.”
“When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.”
“There will be another Larry Bird,” to which Magic Johnson replied years later, “There will never, ever be another Larry Bird.
“The first thing I would do every morning was look at the box scores to see what Magic did. I didn’t care about anything else.”
“Larry Bird just throws the ball in the air and God moves the basket underneath it.”
“We played like a bunch of women.”
Happy birthday playa.
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