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
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.
It depends on what players are offered. The owners have a say in this, too. They want to do the right thing. If we get a good offer, we'll probably take the player. If we don't get good offers, we'll probably take the (draft) choice and do more scouting this winter and prepare for the draft. I think we'll get a good player out of this.
Me and Reggie go way back. I've seen him from him developing as a young player to us retiring his jersey. That's pretty awesome.
Obviously, we're very happy about getting a player of his caliber. He's one of the best shooters in the league and we definitely feel he can come in and help us right away.
We're glad this is over with. We wanted to be patient with this one because Ronnie is a heck of a player and someone's always going to take a chance on someone like that.
It seemed like our team was going to the West Coast, stopping off at cities and our players were worried about being traded. Our time for excuses are over.
About all our good high school players are going out of state. ...That's something that probably hurts more than anything. It's very important to try to keep our kids in-state. That's how you have an identity.
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.
I don't know if this is the right wording, but I felt betrayed. We're disappointed. Things happen, maybe it's a good thing. He's a very talented player. I always liked working with him and how he went about things on the basketball court. He's a top-12 player in the league, but we're in a situation where we have to move on.
He's made as many clutch shots as anybody who has ever played this game.
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 have always been confident in my skills and once the game got going I knew I was probably the best player on the floor most of the time whether it was junior high, high school or college. I knew I had control of the game.
Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that's how I perceived everything.
If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it.