Larry Bird is one of the most legendary players in NBA history. Everyone knows about his championships, MVPs, and rivalry with Magic Johnson in the 80s. Another thing that former players keep talking about with regards to Bird was his incredible trash-talking skill during games.
There are various accounts of players saying Bird would tell you the move he was going to do to a player before actually doing it and executing it absolutely perfectly.
Gary Payton is one of the greatest defenders in NBA history and is one of three guards in NBA history to ever win the Defensive Player of the Year. Even someone of Payton’s caliber wasn’t immune to a classic Larry Bird smackdown.
“JJ, he was cold, man,” Payton told Redick. “He’d tell you like this … ‘You know what? I don’t know what you got for Christmas, but I know what I’mma give you. What I’mma do is I’mma take you on this block, I’mma dribble two times, and then I’mm a pull up in your face … and that will be your Christmas present from me.’ … He used to tell you when he was gonna shoot it in your face and how you couldn’t stop [him] and how you ain’t no good to him. And I was like, ‘Woah, man, that’s just a little bit, that’s disrespectful.’ And then it’ll happen. That’s the whole cold thing about it.”
We haven’t seen a player with that sort of confidence since Bird, who came into the league as a bona fide star. We have players in a similar mold to Bird’s, but none of them had the audacity to pull moves like this off.
It’ll be years before we see another player like Larry Bird, even though people are trying to compare Luka Doncic to him. Bird was one-of-a-kind, and these stories prove it.
