Making the Case - Larry Bird

basketball is special the size of the court and the lack of pads or helmets give fans the most intimate experience of a team sport that exists and because of the different styles that basketball allows for players develop their own distinct identities and signature styles through their creativity Flair and athleticism and although no player succeeds alone the scoring volume and 2-way nature of the sport give individual stars a nearly unprecedented amount of control over the flow and outcome of a game for this reason players are constantly compared to their peers into the legends of the past in order to answer the most hotly-contested question in the sports who's the greatest to ever do it for many the question is redundant they believe in only one right answer they are answered others might have their own personal stance but acknowledge one or two alternatives but I believe that there's much more nuance to the question of greatness and more answers to it than you might think by my count there are eight players in NBA history that have a substantial claim as the go it's a subjective thing though I can't give you a definitive answer all I can do is make the argument so today I'll be making the case for Larry Bird as the greatest basketball player of all time [Music] when it comes to basketball Larry Bird is the smartest clutch's player to ever play the game now if you don't think that Larry Bird is the greatest basketball player of all time you probably hate that I just said that those are the kind of Talking Heads sport cliches that surely impact the game but are impossible to empirically measure normally I'd agree with you but I think that when you talk about Larry Bird you see those intangibles become real palpable results I wouldn't have said it if I didn't believe it when Larry Bird was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1978 the NBA needed saving attendance was in the toilet the league a few marketable stars cocaine addiction had several players in its grasp and most damning of all playoff games were being taped delayed playoff games at the highest level of basketball were being put in the backseat for black-and-white movies and Network reruns but rather than join the Celtics after being taken third overall Larry Bird decided to return for his final year at Indiana State a decision that would prove to be one of the most important in the history of the sport Byrd's final year saw the Sycamores tear through college basketball going 33 onobu for the national championship game Byrd already claimed by the NBA's most historic and prestigious franchise had established himself as the generational talent who would inherit the mantle of pro basketball Indiana state's opponent in the national championship was Michigan State captained by the immortal Irvin Magic Johnson the Sycamores lost the championship to the more talented Spartans in the highest-rated game in the history of basketball at any level still to this day the stage had been set the next decade of basketball would be defined by the rivalry between the white hick from French Lick and his Boston Celtics and the black magic and his Showtime Lakers the rivalry between bird and Johnson is entwined into the fabric of the NBA and is worthy of a hundred documentaries in this video though we're gonna be looking at Birds claim of supremacy here's Birds basketball resume his three championships come with perhaps the highest collective degree of difficulty of any players championships his three MVPs came consecutively making him only the third player to accomplish the feat along with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to finals MVPs are misleading he was absolutely the best player on the 81 Celtics but he was only a sophomore and his 15 points per game in the finals gave the media an excuse to exact a little vengeance on a legendarily difficult interview his all-star and first team selections also come with the caveat that bird only played for 13 seasons and missed all but six games of the 89 season following surgeries on both feet I can hear you already a 13-year career and this guy is supposed to be the goat what color of paint are you huffing Clayton green obviously but hear me out yeah Birds career lasted about two-thirds as long as it should have but what he did in that time was so impressive and so substantial that every basketball fan acknowledges that he's in the conversation as the greatest ever doesn't it matter that those 13 years saved professional basketball delivered a disproportionate amount of memorable moments defined the golden age of the league and produced a career by which all other forwards before or since are measured Byrd squeezed every drop of talent out in those 13 years and made it seem more like 30 he didn't just leave his fingerprints on the game he left so much of his DNA in the sport that it needed a cigarette afterwards there's something to be said about the candle that lasts half is long but burns twice as bright those three MVP years stack up with any other run by any other player I will put an A plus Larry Bird seasoned up against anyone's what does an a-plus Larry Bird season look like a full box score a blowout win a nearly undefeated record at home and a play style that could only be described one way white Larry Bird isn't just a white basketball player he's the white basketball player to describe Larry Bird's game is to thumb through the hoops dictionary and pick out every cliche about white players unathletic great shooter good fundamentals the whole thing the archetype of a white basketball player is Larry Bird with one exception he had an unparalleled understanding of the game of basketball both as a physical contest and as a mental competition his basketball IQ infected everything he did and catapulted his career into legend bird was a complete player Jerry West called him nearly as perfect as you can get he was the league's first great marksman he could contort his body to shoot from anywhere on the court regardless of the level of defense he pioneered the art of the dagger 3 and was the founding member of the 50-40-90 Club at six foot nine Birds understanding of angles and coordination led to a higher rebounding average than Patrick Ewing and it made him an impressively adept finisher in his younger years eighty-six bird dropped 47 points on the Blazers playing the majority of the game left-handed his lack of quick lateral movement meant that bird didn't do much when it came to slapping the floor and picking up the opposing point guard but his size and omniscience gave him the ability to body similarly sized players read defenses like a free safety and pickoff passing lanes with ease his passing was transcendent and I'll highlight it later and of course you need to know that Larry Bird was a tough em effort he had a superhuman motor and dough for loose balls like a beagle at the park he was a willing participant in his share of fights often precipitated by his League renowned trash talk he looked at me and he goes you can't stop me that look good and I said gosh you're so confident keep proceeded to score like 10 straight points on it coach took me out of the game he walks behind his laughs at em he was a basketball genius he'd be a step ahead I thought I had played a game like a chess game and much where the guard might be Jordan and Larry Bird because you have to play the game as a thinker when you plant and you have to get inside his mind he put all of us in a room you know magic Jordan myself and Bert Bert probably be the guy who walks out of the room at the end of the day did you notice something daring those testimonies those are some of the best basketball players of all time and they all sing Byrd's praises like they were former assassins who had to go toe-to-toe with John wick and they're just happy to be alive Bird excelled during one of the most talent rich periods in league history the abridged list of his basketball rivals goes like this dr. J and Moses Malone on the Philadelphia 76ers Sidney Moncrief on the Milwaukee Bucks Isiah Thomas Bill Laimbeer and the bad boy Pistons Dominique Wilkins on the Atlanta Hawks Bernard King on the New York Knicks Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson on the Houston Rockets and of course Magic Johnson James Worthy and Kareem abdul-jabbar on the Los Angeles Lakers all right there's no point avoiding it any longer we have to look at magic versus Larry if you have magic over Larry it's because he has five rings - Larry's three had a peak that lasted about two or three years longer than Larry's and had a two-in-one record against Byrd Celtics in the finals perfectly legitimate completely respectable arguments but in the interest of making Byrd's case allow me to retort for nearly the entire decade of the 1980s the Eastern Conference was irrefutable the more competitive conference between the two considering the competition for Byrd to have made five Finals appearances is just as impressive as Magic's 9 as for the head-to-head record responsible for Magic's two extra titles he had more help seriously the Celtics big three and the Lakers big three get compared all the time historically as if they were of equal caliber but weren't magics accomplices just a step above Birds no disrespect at all to Kevin McHale and Robert Parish but Kareem was the alpha dog on the 71 Bucks and was the best player for at least two of the Lakers five titles [Music] James Worthy was the number one pick out of UNC after winning a championship as the best player on a team that had Michael Jordan on throw in the fact that magic got to be coached by Pat Riley one of the most brilliant minds in basketball history and you could say that the Magic Bird argument comes down to one thing luck so if their careers come down to luck the question just becomes who you would rather take now I'm not making this video to tell you why you shouldn't take magic I'm making this video to tell you why you should take bird not just over magic but over everybody one thing that helps him is the fact that his play would translate perfectly into the league today a six foot nine sharp shooting forward with eyes in the back of his head who averaged double-digit rebounds in an era against Moses in Laimbeer he'd gobble up boards as a power forward he'd be an offensive mismatch against everybody as a small ball Center and his off ball skills and passing would pair perfectly with the flow of today's game add in his competitive mania and three generations worth of medical advancements and we're talking about a player who could have stuck around so long they would have had to rename the league as you've been watching these clips of bird I would hope that you would notice something he always knows where everybody is watching bird play basketball is like watching those monsters from a quiet place that know where you are if you make any noise at all bird had a level of clairvoyance that bordered on the unnatural in 85 he ended up one steal away from a quadruple double after playing just the first three quarters his passing was famously infectious and helped transform the Celtics of the 80s into an ideal that basketball teams at all levels are still shown tape of they moved the ball with precision and intent always looking for better shots and determined to get the entire team involved in the effort that fact is almost entirely attributable to bird and his wizardry with the ball this acumen also helps bird become the only player with a goat claim to transition successfully into other basketball roles after his playing career in his three years as the head coach of the Pacers bird won a Coach of the Year award coached the Pacers to their first and only Finals appearance and gave Michael Jordan as much trouble as he'd ever gotten in his career in the 98 Eastern Conference final after moving into a front office role for Indiana he won executive of the Year in 2012 becoming the only person to have an MVP coach of the year and executive of the Year award on the court or off of it inside and out Larry Bird sees basketball as only he can that intelligence also lent itself to birds defining skill making the big place remember NBA players get paid to win games James Harden is getting paid nearly 40 million dollars this year because he's supposed to help the Rockets win games victory can be achieved in a lot of ways and the win column doesn't care how it happens as Mark Sinclair once said but when your team is down one in a crucial playoff game with eight seconds left and you need to hit a shot to stay in the series and keep your season alive that's where players really separate themselves and earn their money love it or hate it it's the players that come through in the big moments that live forever in our memories some players for whatever reason we're never able to do it consistently some players were truly outstanding at it Larry Bird was the best at it Oh I'm not gonna give you the stats about his field goal shooting under two minutes with a score that's this close so tell you who has the most buzzer beaters or any of that take that fat data I'm just gonna show you clutch moments in clutch situations 1985 against the Blazers bird drops 48 points including this down one was 2 seconds left 1985 against the Hawks bird sets the Celtics scoring record with 60 points with shots like these 1986 against the Rockets not all of Birds clutch moments were singular the bigger the moment the bigger his performance in Game six of the 1986 NBA Finals bird clinches the championship with a triple-double in what he calls the best game he ever played [Music] 1987 against the Washington Bullets Bert hits one shot to tie it before it's waved off because of a timeout it's another shot to tie it up for real and then in double overtime down one he does this for three years from 1986 to 1988 the three-point contest knew no other champion but Larry Bird for the money [Applause] 1987 Eastern Conference Finals Game five tied at two games apiece against the bad boy Pistons this enormous game would put the winner one game away from the NBA Finals the Pistons are up one with seconds remaining the ball goes out of bounds off the Celtics Isiah Thomas just needs to inbound the ball to win the game [Music] [Applause] there are truly too many big games and big moments for me to go through without this ending up as a documentary but that all leads me to this what I really want to talk about 1987 NBA Finals Game four against the Lakers LA is up two games to one and the Celtics need to win to tie the series and stay alive Bird hits a three with 12 seconds left to go up by two [Applause] cream comes down and gets fouled with eight seconds left he makes the first but misses the second la ends up with the ball with seven seconds left down one point Matt hits this the baby skyhook two seconds left down one what do you think happens I bet it wasn't that when I pause the tape and the ball was hanging in the air you thought it was going in bird thought it was going in magic thought it was going in I've seen this game before and I still think it's gonna go in but it didn't Pat Reilly said it himself we got lucky in that a missed shot in the NBA Finals is why he's the clutches because after he makes the big plays has the big games hits the big shots time and time again you expect him to hit every shot to win every game and in those fleeting moments when he doesn't when he looks like a mere human when he looks like everyone else who tries to do what he does you just can't believe it that's what Larry Bird did he made the big place so often you thought he was gonna make them every time he helps turn basketball into a global phenomenon paving the way for every Michael Jordan Kobe Bryant or LeBron James who comes through our lives he played basketball in its purest form and captained a team that has consistently ranked among the greatest of all time he has the second highest win percentage in the history of the NBA behind magic by less than 1/2 of 1% about 10 games he was the complete package a player with no holes in his game whatsoever they called him basketball Jesus he didn't get that name without doing something extraordinary he saved basketball and he did it by playing it better than anyone else here's magic at Byrd's retirement in 1993 Larry Bird said that there will be another Larry Bird one day and Larry they will never ever ever be another very very - the greatest basketball player ever but more important a friend forever hey everybody thank you so much for watching this was a really fun video to make I'm gonna continue to make more of them so please feel free to subscribe and while you're at it go ahead and check out my website Vols in such calm where I post things about like if the solar system was a basketball team could Uranus hit a jump shot you know really important stuff [Music] you [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 445,293

Rating: 4.9336271 out of 5

Keywords: Wilt, Chamberlain, making, the, case, clayton, crowley, nba, basketball, goat, larry, bird, magic, johnson, michael, jordan, lebron, james, tim, duncan, bill, russell, kareem, abdul, jabbar, greatest, of, all, time

Id: Pxf4RzocHN8

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mrpizzaman_]

This Making The Case series is very interesting to watch regardless of who you think is the GOAT. The guy that made these did a very good job in pointing the accomplishments of each player he claims to have an argument for the conversation. The players he talks about are MJ, Kareem, Lebron, Bird, Magic, Wilt, Bill Russell and Timmy.

The videos are long but very detailed. Definitely worth checking out.

[u/itsmeleo47]

Man I fucking LOVED this series Clayton made. This video convinced me that Bird is the most legendary player in terms of clutch and trash talk. On another note, the LeBron video made me tear up with the transition into the whole storyline of 2016.

[u/graveyeverton93]

I've never understood why it's always Magic>Larry. Larry won Rookie Of The Year Magic didn't, when they were both in their prime Larry won 3 MVP's in a row. Is it because Larry fell off earlier because of his back injuries while Magic carried on winning championships and getting to the Finals right up until his 91 Retirement? Was it these 3 or 4 years that Magic pulled away from Bird a little bit in the all time lists?

[u/deck13]

I'll take LeBron overall, too much longevity. BUT Larry's best 4 can go up against anyone. Prime Bird was something else.

[u/Phred_Phrederic]

This series is awesome even if I don't totally buy the argument, I'm glad he made it though.

[u/Airnest8888]

Bird>Magic in terms of being the better player. Magic got 5 rings to Bird’s 3. That’s the only reason some people rank Magic ahead of Bird. Scoring and Shooting: Bird>Magic, Rebounding: Bird>Magic, Defense: Bird> Magic, Passing: Magic>Bird (not a big gap though, Bird ain’t no slouch in passing and playmaking. Magic just got the advantage coz he’s the PG.

[u/LaVarZoNoBall]

I just don’t see how you could make an argument for Bird being GOAT when guys like Lebron and Jordan exist

[u/WorstEpEver]

This dude makes great videos. Also that intro is fiyah

[u/dash2k8]

Boxing has this pound-for-pound thing. I think if we factor in how unathletic Bird was and everything he accomplished with that disadvantage, he would definitely be top-3 skill-vs-athleticism player of all time.