There have been some great trash talkers in the NBA but we’re not sure anyone has ever out-trashed Larry Bird.
Well wait. Some guys have probably talked more trash but no one talked it and backed it up like Bird did.
This video has several stories that his contemporaries tell about him including one from Doc Rivers after Bird had a phenomenal playoff game vs. the Atlanta Hawks. At the end of that game, Bird was so ridiculously good that the Hawks players were high fiving each other and falling off the bench in amazement at what they were seeing.
According to Rivers, this didn’t go over too well with coach Mike Fratello: during the film session, he said, the coach kept rewinding the part of the game where the Hawks were exulting in Bird’s greatness. Presumably he was not happy with his team but when you see something like that what else can you do? We’ve seen a bit of it with Zion Williamson. Last spring in the ACC Tournament, the camera caught some UNC fans reveling in a Zion slam - during the Duke-UNC game.
Bird also had a thing he’d do where he would explain to his defender exactly what he was going to do and where he was going to shoot the ball. There are some other great stories here too, with one involving Wake Forest legend Rodney Rogers and one involving former Maryland star Albert King and hot dogs.
These are really very funny and attest to just how great Bird was and how deeply respected too.
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