Wen Wu is the first, Wu Wu is the second. There is always a lot of bickering about the historical rankings of NBA players. Whether LeBron can challenge Jordan, Russell's ranking geometry, the Sharks and Duncan's high and low, if you want, can pull from the origin of the universe to the end of the world.
But one thing to confirm is:
Yes, and only one white player, will firmly occupy the top ten in history. He's Larry Bird.
He is the ceiling for all NBA whites, and whenever a white player comes out, people's first impression is "Larry Bird II." As far as "God's Left Hand" Mullin, as close as our beloved Teacher Joe.
He is the only regular season MVP triple-win (84-86) since the merger. Dominating the 1970s, Jordan, sharks, and LeBron didn't do it.
He is the representative of the NBA forward. Before LeBron, neither Pippen, who had six crowns in hand, nor Celtic predecessor "Hundo" Haflisek, could challenge his position as the first small forward in history.
He is the only basketball generalist on the planet to win the regular season MVP, Best Coach (Pacers 1998), Best Manager (Pacers 2012). On the perfect transition from the field to the field, only the "LOGO man" West can match it.
And he is also the "mouth king" that can be counted in the history of the NBA. The garbage words left behind, like his beautiful shots, are destined to become popular classics.
Put together into one sentence, "Big Bird" Larry Bird, a perfect person born for basketball.
Bird was born in 1956 in West Barton, one of the poorest areas of Indiana, the fourth child in the family. His father was a town worker, and his modest family developed a reclusive, sensitive personality and a childhood accompanied only by basketball.
Bird later recalled, "I wasn't fast or strong, so I always felt guilty of not practicing enough, always feeling that someone was practicing harder than I was." ”
His father, Joe Bird, a veteran of the Korean War who had relied on alcohol to ease post-war trauma, later divorced Bird's mother, Georgia. In February 1975, he committed suicide by drawing a gun while talking to Georgia on the phone, and the family's misfortune also affected Bird, who was already in college at the time.
He entered Indiana University in 1974, but was unable to adapt to the bustling environment of Indianapolis and dropped out of school after only 24 days. He then went to Northwood University, dropped out for the second time because he couldn't adapt, and it wasn't until 1976 that he took root at Indian State University.
In the first season (1976-77), he had 33 points, 13 boards and 4 assists, and the following year 30 points, 12 boards and 4 assists. He is 2 meters 06 tall, running and jumping is not a strong point, but he has a pair of dexterous hands, and shooting, reaction, passing, and judging are the top existence in the basketball world.
Already one of the best players in college, NBA scouts are still unsure if he can adapt to the intensity of professional games. But the Celtic "Cardinal" once again foresaw the future, winning the sixth pick in the first round in 1978 with the sixth pick, which was still a junior, and encouraging him to give up his studies and go straight to the NBA.
"Child, it's time to change the fate of you and your family."
"No, sir, I'm going to graduate first, and I know you're definitely waiting for me."
In essence, Bird is a tough bone for standing on positions and principles. When the environment is uncertain, he hesitates and wanders. But once he was rooted, he would immediately thrive into a fiercer and tougher presence than anyone else.
When he entered the NBA in 1979 after losing to the Magic in the NCAA final, the Cardinals directly offered him an annual salary of $600,000, and only four stars in the league at that time, bill Walton, Dr. J, Skywalker, and "Skywalker" Thompson, earned more than him. When asked by reporters, "You make so much money as soon as you enter the league, have you ever thought about how to face a star who pays more than you," Bird threw out the first classic trash talk of his career:
"Then they should be prepared to suffer first."
In the NBA at the end of the 1970s, there was no shortage of top small forwards. In the ABA invincible "Dr. J" Owen, four-time scoring champion "Iceman" Gervin, as well as Inglish, Dantley and other scoring masters. But when the big bird came to the NBA, all the peers invisibly lowered a notch.
The world knows the legend of the magician winning the finals mvp in the 1979-80 season, but few people notice that he was not the best rookie of the year. Because Bird had 21.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists, and the Celtics were 61 wins and 21 losses in the league that year, the Magic won the championship, but the big bird was the best rookie of the year.
At that time, the Green Army had both the team's meritorious center, the '70s magician Pete Malavic, and the only scoring king + assist king archibald in NBA history, and the whole team had eight people scored in double figures. But Bird was still the brightest one.
'The Celtics always put winning first, the team before the individual, and it just so happens that I am." At the end of his rookie season, he concluded.
They lost to Dr. J.'s 76ers in the playoffs in 1980, and retired with a decade on the team and Maravic left, but the Cardinals' magic hand reappeared, and he exchanged the signing he had from the Pistons and his first-round pick for Warriors center Robert Parrish and that year's No. 7 Kevin McHale.
Thus, the first front line in history was born.
Parrish has a solid foundation in defense and rebounding, while also has a precise mid-range shot on the offensive end. This gave the Green Army the capital to fight against giant centers like Skygo, Moses Malone, and Olajuwon throughout the eighties.
With a height of 2.08 meters and an exaggerated arm span of 2.44 meters, McHale was the most exaggerated long-handed monster at that time. But what is most unique about him is his dazzling pace of interior, and he later became the "low-level offensive arsenal" of the NBA and Big Dream.
Both hands are able to skillfully hook hands, silky compass-like "SOMA steps", and paired with a back-up jumper that his long hands can barely cover. In the words of Pistons defensive sleek John Sully:
"Defending Kevin (McHale) is like being thrown into an ice cellar, he has a thousand ways to torture you"
But mcHale couldn't start at first, because Bird was standing next to Maxwell, who was more compatible with him.
In the 1981 Finals against the Rockets, Bird was heavily wrapped up, averaging just 15.3 points per game. It was Maxwell who stepped up and scored 28 points and 14 rebounds in Game 5 and eventually took away the fmvp with 17.7 points.
What about Bird? He delivered a two-team high of 7.0 assists and became the team's rebounding king with 15.3 rebounds, knowing that Standing opposite was Moses Malone, the king of NBA rebounding at the time!
Bird averaged 10.0 rebounds per game in his career, higher than Ewing, Big Ben and our Yao Ming. A white man who couldn't jump very well, wasn't very tall, in the most brutal eighties.
He has 6.35 assists in his career, 46th in history, and is only below LeBron and Harden among non-point guards, but we all know that East Andy Can plays as an organizational guard.
Then there's his amazing shots.
He was actually left-handed in his life, but he always played with his right hand (leBron did the same), but after injuring his right middle finger in 1979, he couldn't bend 90 degrees or straighten. He played with nine fingers almost entirely of his career.
His five peak seasons (84-88) hit 51 percent from the field, 40 percent from three-point range, 91 percent from the free throw line, the big "180 club," including two 180 seasons (86-88), and four years of the league's top free throw shooting percentage.
In 1987, Reggie Miller, who later became the NBA's all-time three-point king, first confronted Larry Bird, and the same "talking" Miller Big Bird was chattering on the sidelines when he made a free throw, and the Big Bird welcomed the newcomer to the NBA with a classic trash sentence after two free throws:
"Lao Tzu is the best pitcher in xx's league, do you stupid people think it's useful to say that?"
Bird's garbage words are always so stylish, always standing at the height of "Lao Tzu is the first in the world" to spray you.
On November 9, 1984, he defeated the defending champion 76ers at home, and he scored 42 points to blast Dr. J, who scored only 6 points. At the end of the game, he chanted 42-6 and 42-6 in Owen's ear like a repeating machine, and Owen, who has always been a good gentleman, couldn't bear it and went straight to work.
Even his nemesis and friend "Magician" is not immune. On February 11, 1981, the Lakers visited Boston, and the Magician was unable to play due to injury. The Celtics won 105-91, with Bird scoring 36 points, 21 boards, 6 assists, 5 steals and 3 blocks. After each goal he finds a magician sitting on the sidelines:
"Hey Elvin (magician), this is for you."
He is sometimes "bored" enough to miss a problem to a defender. Before killing supersonics, Knicks, and Mavericks, he would say to the defenders in advance, "Look, I'll kill you here, stupid." ”
By comparison, he said in the 1988 All-Star Three-Point Game, "Are you here for second place?" ", has given the face of peers.
Even to his teammates, he does not give any face.
He has always believed that his best partner McHale has not fully tapped into his potential, so the relationship between the two is far from being as harmonious as the outside world imagines. He has even insisted that Dennis Johnson (fmvp in 1979, Celtic in 1983) was the best teammate of his career.
In 1984, McHale accidentally broke the team's single-game record of 54 points, and two weeks later he scored 60 points against the Eagles.
"It's not uncommon in the Celtics to do these things, or you think I'd let the previous record last that long?"
In 1985, legendary center Bill Wharton came to the Celtics to play the sixth man, and Bird met and said, "I think the team training gym is going to change the barbell, I'm afraid he'll break your foot."
Of course, all his compulsions are based on his strong strength.
From the beginning of his entry into the league in 1979 to 1988, the first nine seasons of his career were the following regular season MVP voting rankings:
4、2、2、2、1、1、1、3、2。
1984-86 is the unique mvp sanlian zhuang.
The Celtics in the 1985-86 season were considered the greatest team in history until the 72-win Bulls appeared in 1995-96.
Bird, McHale, Parrish, Dennis Johnson, Bill Wharton, five Hall of Fame stars. They lost 67-15 in the regular season, including an exaggerated 50-1 at home (including the playoffs). From December 6, 1985 to December 2, 1986, they won a record 55 consecutive games at home.
But it was also that year that Bird was injured.
In 1985, he put his back on the back while building a house for his mother, Georgia, and has been battling his back injury ever since. At that time, the NBA did not have enough top sports care, and the stars did not have the habit of rotating, so Bird treated his back injury while leading the best Celtics in history to win.
"My father broke his leg on the construction site one year, but he insisted on it for two weeks so as not to miss work. His legs became big and purple when he came home for the weekend, and I don't know how he managed to hold on. And he only told me that people paid you to work, not to rest. ”
In 1986, Bird won the championship, regular season + finals MVP, but the injury has kept him from the peak, and he is no longer the big bird that can do everything.
He lost to the Lakers in the 1987 Finals, the Bad Boys, who could no longer stop the Pistons in 1988, and in 1989 he almost rested for an entire season with a back injury.
In 1992, the 36-year-old Bird announced his retirement, ending his thirteen-year brilliant career, not only for the Green Army in the eighties to win three more championships, but more importantly, let the world once again see the invincible Celtics in the sixties.
But do you think he's at the point where he can't beat the NBA?
In fact, in the last three years of his career, although his back has been as fragile as glass, he still maintains the top stats of 22.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 46% shooting rate. In his final year of retirement (1991-92), he was able to score 49 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists in front of the then-No. 1 Blazers in the West.
McHale said: "Bird will not play in the league for too long, because his self-esteem will not allow himself to be humiliated by his latecomers every day, and he will definitely retire when he is still an emperor."
But in fact, his basketball legend has just entered the second half.
In 1997, he served as the head coach of his hometown team, the Indiana Pacers, and in his first year he led Reggie Miller, who was also a super scorer, to the Eastern Conference Finals, where he fought seven games without blocking Jordan in his final year. But he became coach of the year in his debut season and coached the Eastern Conference All-Star, as successful as he had been as a player.
In 1999, it was still the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the old enemy Knicks.
In 2000, they finally broke through the East, but the Finals met the Lakers' "ok combination".
Coached for three years, twice in the East Finals, once in the Finals, or because of the encounter with Jordan and the "ok combination".
"Larry's brain was born for basketball, and you can't hide his every move on the court. He didn't surprise me at all that he achieved such an achievement: "Cardinal Auerbach, who was retired at the time, was not at all surprised by the success of coach Bird.
In 2007, he took over as pacers general manager, bringing in Danny Granger, Paul George, Hibbert and Stevens, finally helping the Pacers return to the first-team sequence and becoming LeBron's Heat's biggest rival in the East in those years. He also won the League's Best Manager of 2012.
Interestingly, the four fastest improving players in the history of the Pacers,
In 2000, Jalen Ross was personally trained when he was a coach.
Danny Granger in 2009 and Paul George in 2013 were personally selected by him, and all three are strikers.
As a small forward ceiling, the big bird's vision is really poisonous.
Now 66 years old, big bird, entered the Hall of Fame (1998), won the Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), and has long since retired from the NBA's front-line position to raise a long time.
It's just that after Jordan there is Kobe as a legacy,
After the magician, there was also a muscle-strengthening version like LeBron,
Sky hook, big dream, shark is also passed down from generation to generation,
There are also revolutionary geniuses like Curry, Dirk, durant, etc.
But after him, regardless of the color of his skin, there was never a big bird as smart, cunning, and strong as he was.