Larry Joe Bird has a significant case to the remembered as a Top 5 player in the history of the NBA, the Boston Celtics legend was simply unstoppable in his day. And while Michael Jordan is often considered the GOAT for how supremely great he was in his prime, Bird arguably has the second-best prime of any player not named Michael Jordan.
During the 1980s, at the peak of his rivalry with Magic Johnson, Bird was running the league, finishing no lower than 3rd in the MVP race from 1981 to 1988. This is also when he won most of his trophies, bagging the MVP award 3 seasons in a row while also claiming 2 championships and 2 Finals MVPs. NBA fan mathematiciancrg on Reddit pointed out just how great Bird’s prime was, spanning almost the entirety of the 80s.
In those 8 years, Bird averaged 25 points per game to go along with over 10 rebounds, over 6 assists as well as nearly 2 steals. Those are incredible numbers to put up consistently for that amount of time and they go to show why Bird is rated so highly by hoop heads despite him not having as many championships as some of the other GOAT candidates.
What made him even more impressive was the era he did it in, players like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Moses Malone were all active and in the league during the years Bird was dominating. His record against these top players makes impressive reading, especially against MJ, who never managed to beat Bird in the playoffs despite having 6 opportunities.
While Magic and the Showtime Lakers ended up having the better overall record against Bird, he still absolutely had the better of some huge names like Isiah Thomas, Charles Barkley, Sidney Moncrief, and Moses Malone. The fact remains that Bird was one of the best to ever do it, and his confidence matched his skill, meaning we haven’t seen anything like him enter the NBA since he retired from playing.
