Why is larry bird famous

LeBron James leads Larry Bird in points per game in both regular season as well as playoffs. James has an edge over Bird in scoring and assists as he averaged Still a sports legend and immensely popular figure to his fellow Hoosiers, Bird owned two businesses, a hotel and restaurant in Terre Haute and a car dealership in Martinsville, Indiana. You might be interested: What happens if a baby bird died in the nest? Scoring the rivalry: How Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played in their legendary head-to-head matchups.

Johnson and Bird played against each other 37 times in their NBA careers — 18 times in the regular season, 19 times in the playoffs. He established himself as one of the NBA most dominant power forwards. Your email address will not be published. Author Jack Gloop. Contents 1 Why Larry Bird is the greatest of all time? An obsessive perfectionist, Bird was idolized by Celtic fans and basketball purists of all allegiances.

His last-second heroics, ranging from seemingly impossible reverse layups to miraculous foot bombs over multiple defenders, never ceased to amaze those who followed his career. Stern when Bird retired due to a painful back condition in , after capturing a gold medal with the original Dream Team at the Olympics in Barcelona. Attendance often reached 1, — and they were all there to watch the blond-haired shooting whiz with a funny smile named Larry Joe Bird.

Following a sophomore season that was shortened by a broken ankle, Bird emerged as a star during his junior year. Springs Valley went and young Larry became a local celebrity. Bird found the transition to college life difficult. He started out as an Indiana Hoosier but later left the school and team coached by the legendary Bobby Knight.

Then he left the local junior college, Northwood Institute. Finally, Bird enrolled at Indiana State, which had posted records in each of the two previous years and where the pressure was not quite the same as at Indiana — a perennial Big Ten power and national title contender. Home-game attendance hovered around 3, when Bird arrived at Indiana State, but as he had done in Springs Valley, Bird single-handedly packed the house and elevated his team to respectability and more.

He averaged better than 30 points and 10 rebounds for the Sycamores during his first campaign. Season-ticket sales tripled. TV stations showed film clips of Bird instead of commercials. Students skipped class to line up for tickets eight hours before tipoff.

The Sycamores went undefeated and reached No. In the Celtics had compiled a record, their worst since When Bird elected to return to Indiana State for one more year, the Celtics dipped to But Bird finally came to Boston for the campaign and sparked one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in NBA history.

The Celtics improved by 32 games to and returned to the top of their division. Playing in all 82 contests, Bird led the team in scoring They teamed with Bird and veteran Cedric Maxwell in a frontcourt that carried the Celtics to the championship in Boston survived a memorable Eastern Conference finals against Philadelphia in which the Celtics bounced back from a deficit and posted come-from-behind victories in each of the last three games, then took the title over Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets in a six-game NBA Finals.

Bird once again led the team in points He was unflappable and virtually unstoppable. The hours he had spent working on his shot as a youngster paid big dividends in the NBA.

No other player in his era was as good or as consistent a shooter as Bird. In , Bird made the first of his three consecutive appearances on the NBA All-Defensive Second Team — even though he was relatively slow and not the greatest one-on-one defender, his anticipation and court sense made him peerless as a team defender. As many observed, he would see plays not as they were developing, but before they developed. He also hit nearly 90 percent of his free-throw attempts. With five seconds remaining and the Celtics trailing , Bird stole an Isiah Thomas inbounds pass and fed Dennis Johnson, whose layup gave Boston the win.

The Celtics won the physical, bitter series in seven games and advanced to the NBA Finals for the fourth consecutive year, meeting the Lakers for the third time. But Los Angeles won the series in six games. Bird, now 30 years old and with worsening back condition and foot problems as well, would not win a fourth championship ring.

But there were plenty more heroics yet to come. In , Bird was the first Celtic ever to record a game, with a point, rebound effort against Indiana. He averaged a career-high Bird poured in 20 points in the final period to outdo his counterpart and lead the Celtics to victory — even though he had bronchial pneumonia.

The Celtics, however, fell to the Pistons in the conference finals. Surgery to remove bone spurs from both heels limited Bird to only six games in The following year Bird posted the third-longest free-throw streak in NBA history, hitting 71 consecutive attempts. Bird missed 22 games in because of a compressed nerve root in his back, a condition that eventually forced his retirement.

In a first-round series that year, Bird badly bruised his face in a second-quarter fall in Game 5 against Indiana.