Larry Bird
Larry Bird
Larry Joe Birdis an American retired professional basketball player who played for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. Since retiring as a player, he has been a mainstay in the Indiana Pacers organization, currently serving as team president. Drafted into the NBA sixth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1978, Bird started at small forward and power forward for thirteen seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish and forward Kevin McHale...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth7 December 1956
CityWest Baden Springs, IN
CountryUnited States of America
Like me, he plays the game to win, ... Because of his intensity and desire to win, Ronnie's a guy I would pay money to watch play.
He was clearly frustrated. Ronnie thinks if we lose, we would have won the game if he had the ball every time. The offense bogs down at times, but it's still a great offense. He held the ball a lot of times. Nothing frustrated me more than him not rebounding, but I didn't go out in the public and say anything.
I like the way we're playing. Not just because we're winning games, but because of the way we're moving the ball. It seems like we're coming together. We'll win a lot of games doing that.
Hoosiers love this place. The high school game has produced a lot of legendary stories, and those stories get told here.
You can't walk in there after a couple of months off and expect to play in the playoffs. He's definitely going to have to play some games before the playoffs. There's no question about that. The playoffs are completely different.
I think you have to work very hard and dedicate yourself and have the respect of your teammates before you're about to go out and just try to take a game over by yourself.
In the closing seconds of every game, I want the ball in my hands for the last shot - not in anybody else's, not in anybody else's in the world.
But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever.
As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me - red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because it's disrespect to my game.
Before every game I used to go out and shot the same shots over and over and over. In the summer time I spent a lot of time just shooting. So really it just came natural. Whether it's a tie game or down by 1 or up by five, it was always the same shot. So I always felt comfortable with the ball in my hands because it was in there a million times before.
When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, 'cause that was the best game. And these guys, they'd let me play. And they were black guys.
We weren't really interested in what teams were talking about. We haven't had our team together for two years. I like how we're playing now. We need to get everybody back and look at the product before we make any type of decision on whether we want to do anything this summer.
The right guy at the right time after Athens and the World Championships, ... This is the type of guy we need. After 2004 we needed a wake up call and we got ours.
Consistency has been one of our biggest problems. I don't see anybody on our team that you can depend on every night to do the same thing. One night they're up, and one night they're down. If you know what you're getting from each player, it's pretty easy as far as coaching. When it's inconsistent, you don't know what you're going to get and it makes it hard to substitute.