In today’s day and age, a lot of NBA players don’t exactly lose sleep over missing games, but the great Larry Bird wasn’t like that. In fact, former Boston Celtics president Red Auerbach once stated that the best way to punish Bird would be to tell him he couldn’t play for a few games.
“If I wanted to punish him, I wouldn’t fine him. I could fine him any amount and he wouldn’t say anything. If I really wanted to punish him, I’d tell him he can’t play the next couple of games.”
A lot of current NBA players have complained about the 65-game threshold for awards, with current Celtic Jaylen Brown suggesting the minimum game requirement should be 58. The fact that they feel it’s too much to ask of them to play at least 80% of the season to be eligible for awards is disappointing.
Someone like Bird wouldn’t have worried about a rule like this one bit. The fewest number of games he played in a single campaign in his first nine seasons in the league was 74.
Bird played all 82 games in three seasons and it was only when he started dealing with severe heel and back injuries that he started to miss time. He even played through injuries, as he desperately wanted to be out there on the court, and you wish there were more players with that mindset in today’s NBA.
Larry Bird Shared His Mentality During His Career
Bird recently sat down with Isiah Thomas and Reggie Miller for an episode of Basketball Stories. There, he revealed what his mentality was during his career.
“The one thing I have that a lot of people don’t have — there’s a lot of players that have it — I had the ability to play every night,” Bird said. “I brought it every night. I got a good understanding that the Celtics paid me to win basketball games. It was my job to win basketball games, so every time I walked out there, I felt I had to win to make them happy. The one thing I can say in everything that I’ve done is I gave it my all. I paid the price with a lot of injuries I had, but I laid it on the line every night — practice, playing — and it made me better. Plus, I was playing against the world’s best. That’s what it’s all about.”
☘️“The Celtics paid me to win basketball games….The one thing I can say of everything I’ve done is, I gave it my all. I paid the price with a lot of injuries I had but I laid it on the line every night. Practice, playing, and it made me better.” -Larry Bird#LarryLegend pic.twitter.com/wwLUcYed1z
— Larry Legend☘️ (@LarryBirdDaily) February 19, 2024
Well, I would say the Celtics certainly got bang for their buck. Bird played all 13 seasons of his career with the Celtics and had averages of 24.3 points, 10.0 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game. He won three NBA championships and two Finals MVPs along the way.
Bird also remains the last player to win three straight MVPs, having done so from 1984 to 1986. He finished in the top two in voting seven times in an eight-year stretch from 1981 to 1988, which is just ridiculous.
It’s a big what-if on how much Bird could have achieved in his career, were he not to be hampered by that debilitating back problem. It is what caused him to retire after the 1991-92 season when he was still playing at a fairly high level. Despite being forced to walk away from the game much earlier than he would have liked, Bird has gone down as one of the greatest players ever and arguably as the greatest Celtic ever.
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