Does Larry Bird get too much of a pass for his underwhelming performance in the Playoffs?

[Warspite]

Are you aware that Kevin Mchale, Robert Parish are both Hall of Fame players?
Not to mention Dennis Johnson, Cornbread Maxwell and Bill Walton were all very, very, very good.

Bird got to have his backside covered by the best Defensive Center in the NBA and the best defensive Power Forward in the NBA...for his whole career.



Dirk, Lebron, Kobe, Durant, Curry, Harden...etc have all been raked over the coals for any sort of weakness to their game, or legacy.

Bird's shortcoming and misteps are just glossed over, or ignored by damn near everyone because of his skin color and how the media loved him.

and for the record....I was saying the exact same things 30 years ago. Isaiah Thomas wasn't really far off with his criticism of how the media treated Larry Bird.

let me also state that Larry Bird was a fantastic player. But when I see people say he is a top 5 player of all time I just laugh. The media can control a narrative of what we think about certain players.

Robert Parish never made an all star game or any all NBA teams in Golden State. He was just a good player but once he played with Bird he finished 5th in MVP voting. McHale was just a young back up PF that didn't start until after Bird had 2 rings. DJ was traded to Boston because he couldn't shoot and was haunted by his poor Finals performance. Ainge was a baseball player who played basketball in the offseason to stay in shape. You can rewrite history to say that Bird played with stacked teams or you can tell the truth and understand that Bird made journeymen starters, starters all stars and all stars MVP candidates.

For every person that hyped Bird because of his skin color there were and still are 10 who discredit him for the same reason. Both groups are bigots.

As a Pistons fan I fear no player but Larry Bird.

We own the Lakers and beating them is easy. You just have be tougher and they melt/self destruct.

Not larry Bird..... Bird is Sauron, Voldemort and Jason Vorhees. He keeps coming back from the dead. His mission in life is to destroy the hopes and dreams of all basketball fans outside of Boston and then dance on your graves. He is Darth Vador who uses his powers to manipulate the clock and the basketball to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. He doesnt always win but always makes you wonder how he is going to beat you.

Larry Bird never won a title without Robert Parrish or Kevin Mchale.

Parrish and McHale are both in the Hall of Fame. Those three are still the best Front line in NBA history.

Very few players in NBA history ever had the luxury of playing with a Ben Wallace and Kevin Garnett type of talent to protect your backside.

Larry Bird would have never won an NBA title without those two. You are rewriting history to make it sound like Bird did it by himself....which only plays into what I've been saying on this thread.

Robert Parish was the 2nd option on a team that was 24-58. He was a sub .500 FG% C who was 17ppg and 10rpg. His team was bad on defense and he was its anchor.

McHale is a 20mpg 10ppg rookie that started 1 game all season when they win the title in 1981.

No Larry didnt win without them but then again he only played 1 season without them and he did play in game 7 of the ECF in that season.

[G35]

Well, I will say this...as you get older your perspective changes. As I've said Dr J was my favorite player growing up and I lived in Colorado Springs for five years, from 1983-1987. I will tell you, there was a real air of racial bias. There actually wasn't a lot of Sixer fans in Colorado, but everyone loved Larry Bird and there was not a lot of black kids at the school I went to.

Just to simplify the lines:

Black people/kids tended to lean towards Magic Johnson and the Lakers

White people/kids tended to lean towards Larry and the Celtics....at least that's how it felt in the moment. There were a lot of comedians who would address this...bias. I remember Arsenio Hall saying, "There's a black guy on the Celtics with freckles! I gotta change the contrast on my tv out, this can't be right!"

I use to wonder about that racial bias, because there were a lot of black players on the Celtics: Parish, DJ, Maxwell, Carr, Henderson, and the the coach was black, KC Jones.

I remember hearing about the fight between Larry and Julius....that was big back then. They weren't posing, they were actually fighting with the purpose of hurting each other.

Then in the later 80's, as the Pistons became a bigger threat in the East, the big controversy was Isiah, and IIRC Rodman, said something to the effect, "If Larry Bird was white, he would be looked at as just another player." and then you could hear him laugh after. But there was a real rivalry with the Celtics and they didn't like each other. The Celtics had more rivals than the Lakers did; Celtics-Sixers, Celtics-Pistons were both just as contested rivalries as the the Celtics-Lakers.

So I was not a fan of the Celtics growing up, they were the enemy and nothing more needed to be said. Beat them by any means necessary.

Then we all heard how Bird hurt his back trying repave his mom's driveway or something like that...then every Celtics game you watched Bird laying on his stomach or on his back on the sidelines. You could see he was not the same player any more but he would have his moments.

As I got older, new players came along, of course Jordan, Barkley, Hakeem, Robinson, Shaq, Ewing, Stockton/Malone...then the 2000 generation came along. Somewhere along the way I began to appreciate the players of the 80's and then in a weird way, I began to appreciate Bird more. I think as I began to learn how teams win, instead of who scores the most points, gets the most rebounds, I began to appreciate the more subtle parts of the game like leadership, passion, knowing how to talk trash and back it up. I began to respect Larry Bird more for what he did to lead the Celtics.

Basketball is a black man's game, we all know it, you can't help but see the racial makeup of the NBA. But Larry Bird was the great white hype...and he backed it up. As a young black man, I didn't appreciate that at all, but now I compare it to Tiger Woods dominating in golf. We see a lot of white guys dominate in golf, its not surprising or unusual but Tiger was mixed black kid who was dominating. It was like Linsanity or Yao Ming, its nice to see an underdog in the sport do well and Larry Bird didn't just do well, he dominated the league.

I'm probably biased but I love Larry Bird, he wasn't about any BS talk, he wasn't going to throw no side-eye shade, he was gonna talk trash in your face and beat you. Shoot, you know how eveyone wipes the bottom of their shoes off when coming into the game? Larry Bird was the first person I ever saw do that, I thought it was so unusual to do that but Lebron does it all the time. It was just different back then......

[Ambrose]

You are an ignorant person. This is the United States of America. This country was founded on racism. Please GTFO with that BS that racism does not exist anymore.

Larry Birds skin color had everything to do with the media's coverage of him. If he was black he would have been just another really good NBA player.

I keep stating over and over again that Bird was really good. Im not really taking anything away from his game....but I am referring to the media's coverage of him and how it effects how people think about him and his legacy.

Let me break this down for you.

Back in the 20th Century most of the media members where white. People are people and will have natural biases towards a certain player or team. This is not necessarily racist.
I keep using Brett Favre as an example because its almost the exact same thing as Bird.

Is Brett Favre an all time great? Yes
Was Brett Favre a fantastic talent? Yes
Was Brett Favre overrated when he was in his prime? Without a doubt

Back in the 1990's the media fell in love with this Redneck, Gunslinger from Mississippi. This leads to favorable media coverage, lots of commercials, and certain accolades that i don't think he deserved.

Brett Favre (just like Larry Bird) also won three NFL MVP's in a row and at one time was considered the best football player in the world.

The media seemed to gloss over the fact that Favre was an interception machine and repeatedly cost his team with interceptions in critical moments (see 1995 and 2009 NFC Championship games).

Over the years with the advent of the internet, social media and other things it slowly began to leak out that Favre was somewhat of a selfish jerk, and most likely a crummy human being.

Favre legacy has taken a hit. Most media members will tell you straight up that he is not as good as Aaron Rodgers.

Larry Bird won three straight NBA MVP's in the mid 1980's and the media became in love with the Hick from French Lick.
Here was a fantastic white player playing in the league that was transitioning to being overwhelmingly black.

His shortcomings might not be broadcasted as loudly as other players. Because of the favorable media coverage that Bird got this seeps to the average fan and causes people to automatically assume that Larry Bird had no flaws, or weaknesses to his game.

To this day most people gloss over the fact that Larry Bird played his whole career on a stacked super team, when only two or three other teams in the entire league had anything close to that type of talent.

Kevin Mchale and Robert Parish have just as much to do with the Celtics and Larry Birds success in the 1980's.

If Larry Bird played when the internet and social media was out he would have his game diced and ripped up as much as Dirk had to put up with his whole career.

Prime Brett Favre had an interception percentage of under 2.5% three years in a row then went up to 3.1% up in his 3rd MVP season all while leading the NFL in TD% each time. He did this all while being far more heavily relied on than any other elite QB in that era. The pick machine stuff is nonsense for this stretch of his career. Not to mention that three year run included 3 of the top 7 TD pass totals in NFL history at that point (and if you include the year prior 4 of the top 10). He did this despite losing his best WR to career ending injury right in the middle of that stretch and didn't miss a beat.

In this same 3 year stretch he led his team to three Conference Championship appearances, two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl victory and in each of losses, lost to the team that did win the Super Bowl, by a combined 13 points. He was considered the best player in the NFL because he was (for the first two, don't believe he deserved that 3rd MVP but Detroit only won 9 games).

To recap: He put out the most dominant bulk passing 4 year stretch ever to that point with the only thing keeping him from legendary efficiency, as it was already elite, being his low completion %. Then combined that with excellent team success in one of the most top heavy conferences of all time. The only guy who compared was Steve Young and he was always hurt. So yeah, I'm thinking that revisionist history is not the case.

All I remember is that the Dallas Cowboys never had any problem with Brett Favre.

Brett Favre is 1-9 against Troy Aikman in his career.....and please don't give me that supporting cast excuse that Packers fans always want to use to justify all those ass whippings to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Packers were loaded with great players.

The Green Bay Packers couldn't even beat the Dallas Cowboys in 1996 when they won the Super Bowl and Dallas was in decline.

There is no way Brett Favre deserved the 1995 NFL MVP over Emmit Smith.

Smith set the NFL record for rushing touchdowns that season as well as leading the NFL in rushing for the 4th time. Smith also led the Cowboys to their 3rd Super Bowl victory, and third straight year knocking Favre/Packers out of the playoffs.

I would take Troy Aikman any day of the week over Brett Favre.

One of the all time great dynasties never had a problem with an elite player? You don't say. Just ask the Pistons how they felt about Jordan for years until his team caught up with him. Going 1-9 against Dallas is absolutely irrelevant because that only impacted one of the three seasons in during his MVP stretch aka his prime (95 CC). A stretch that I must point out again he went to the three conference championships and two super bowls, while going on the most prolific passing stretch in the history of the NFL to that point.

The bolded has more to do with you not being a good judge of talent than anything else, especially the Aikman stuff. Not only did he play with an elite WR, RB and OL the majority of his career, all he was ever asked to do was manage games. Every statistic available to us points to this. Based off of this I'm guessing you think Smith was a better back than Barry Sanders too. I was kind of hoping for a more honest debate but this just seems like some obscene rhetoric you came up with years ago and convinced yourself it was true. I gave you plenty of evidence pointing to how Favre was every bit as good as he was regarded as and your response is a full of irrelevant data and silly opinions.

[Pg81]

Are you aware that Kevin Mchale, Robert Parish are both Hall of Fame players?
Not to mention Dennis Johnson, Cornbread Maxwell and Bill Walton were all very, very, very good.

Bird got to have his backside covered by the best Defensive Center in the NBA and the best defensive Power Forward in the NBA...for his whole career.



Dirk, Lebron, Kobe, Durant, Curry, Harden...etc have all been raked over the coals for any sort of weakness to their game, or legacy.

Bird's shortcoming and misteps are just glossed over, or ignored by damn near everyone because of his skin color and how the media loved him.

and for the record....I was saying the exact same things 30 years ago. Isaiah Thomas wasn't really far off with his criticism of how the media treated Larry Bird.

let me also state that Larry Bird was a fantastic player. But when I see people say he is a top 5 player of all time I just laugh. The media can control a narrative of what we think about certain players.

Robert Parish never made an all star game or any all NBA teams in Golden State. He was just a good player but once he played with Bird he finished 5th in MVP voting. McHale was just a young back up PF that didn't start until after Bird had 2 rings. DJ was traded to Boston because he couldn't shoot and was haunted by his poor Finals performance. Ainge was a baseball player who played basketball in the offseason to stay in shape. You can rewrite history to say that Bird played with stacked teams or you can tell the truth and understand that Bird made journeymen starters, starters all stars and all stars MVP candidates.

For every person that hyped Bird because of his skin color there were and still are 10 who discredit him for the same reason. Both groups are bigots.

As a Pistons fan I fear no player but Larry Bird.

We own the Lakers and beating them is easy. You just have be tougher and they melt/self destruct.

Not larry Bird..... Bird is Sauron, Voldemort and Jason Vorhees. He keeps coming back from the dead. His mission in life is to destroy the hopes and dreams of all basketball fans outside of Boston and then dance on your graves. He is Darth Vador who uses his powers to manipulate the clock and the basketball to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. He doesnt always win but always makes you wonder how he is going to beat you.

Larry Bird never won a title without Robert Parrish or Kevin Mchale.

Parrish and McHale are both in the Hall of Fame. Those three are still the best Front line in NBA history.

Very few players in NBA history ever had the luxury of playing with a Ben Wallace and Kevin Garnett type of talent to protect your backside.

Larry Bird would have never won an NBA title without those two. You are rewriting history to make it sound like Bird did it by himself....which only plays into what I've been saying on this thread.

Michael Jordan never won anything without Pippen, Jackson, Grant and then later Rodman.
Magic never won anything without Kareem, Worthy and Cooper.
Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol/Odom.
LeBron only won when he had the likes of Wade/Bosh and then Kyrie/Love on his team.
Etc.

Your argument is as hollow as it can get.

[Warspite]

Are you aware that Kevin Mchale, Robert Parish are both Hall of Fame players?
Not to mention Dennis Johnson, Cornbread Maxwell and Bill Walton were all very, very, very good.

Bird got to have his backside covered by the best Defensive Center in the NBA and the best defensive Power Forward in the NBA...for his whole career.



Dirk, Lebron, Kobe, Durant, Curry, Harden...etc have all been raked over the coals for any sort of weakness to their game, or legacy.

Bird's shortcoming and misteps are just glossed over, or ignored by damn near everyone because of his skin color and how the media loved him.

and for the record....I was saying the exact same things 30 years ago. Isaiah Thomas wasn't really far off with his criticism of how the media treated Larry Bird.

let me also state that Larry Bird was a fantastic player. But when I see people say he is a top 5 player of all time I just laugh. The media can control a narrative of what we think about certain players.

Robert Parish never made an all star game or any all NBA teams in Golden State. He was just a good player but once he played with Bird he finished 5th in MVP voting. McHale was just a young back up PF that didn't start until after Bird had 2 rings. DJ was traded to Boston because he couldn't shoot and was haunted by his poor Finals performance. Ainge was a baseball player who played basketball in the offseason to stay in shape. You can rewrite history to say that Bird played with stacked teams or you can tell the truth and understand that Bird made journeymen starters, starters all stars and all stars MVP candidates.

For every person that hyped Bird because of his skin color there were and still are 10 who discredit him for the same reason. Both groups are bigots.

As a Pistons fan I fear no player but Larry Bird.

We own the Lakers and beating them is easy. You just have be tougher and they melt/self destruct.

Not larry Bird..... Bird is Sauron, Voldemort and Jason Vorhees. He keeps coming back from the dead. His mission in life is to destroy the hopes and dreams of all basketball fans outside of Boston and then dance on your graves. He is Darth Vador who uses his powers to manipulate the clock and the basketball to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. He doesnt always win but always makes you wonder how he is going to beat you.

His actual play in the postseason does not quite line up with this though,,,,,Which makes OP seem correct

Watch on YouTube

[Jonny Blaze]

Robert Parish never made an all star game or any all NBA teams in Golden State. He was just a good player but once he played with Bird he finished 5th in MVP voting. McHale was just a young back up PF that didn't start until after Bird had 2 rings. DJ was traded to Boston because he couldn't shoot and was haunted by his poor Finals performance. Ainge was a baseball player who played basketball in the offseason to stay in shape. You can rewrite history to say that Bird played with stacked teams or you can tell the truth and understand that Bird made journeymen starters, starters all stars and all stars MVP candidates.

For every person that hyped Bird because of his skin color there were and still are 10 who discredit him for the same reason. Both groups are bigots.

As a Pistons fan I fear no player but Larry Bird.

We own the Lakers and beating them is easy. You just have be tougher and they melt/self destruct.

Not larry Bird..... Bird is Sauron, Voldemort and Jason Vorhees. He keeps coming back from the dead. His mission in life is to destroy the hopes and dreams of all basketball fans outside of Boston and then dance on your graves. He is Darth Vador who uses his powers to manipulate the clock and the basketball to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. He doesnt always win but always makes you wonder how he is going to beat you.

Larry Bird never won a title without Robert Parrish or Kevin Mchale.

Parrish and McHale are both in the Hall of Fame. Those three are still the best Front line in NBA history.

Very few players in NBA history ever had the luxury of playing with a Ben Wallace and Kevin Garnett type of talent to protect your backside.

Larry Bird would have never won an NBA title without those two. You are rewriting history to make it sound like Bird did it by himself....which only plays into what I've been saying on this thread.

Michael Jordan never won anything without Pippen, Jackson, Grant and then later Rodman.
Magic never won anything without Kareem, Worthy and Cooper.
Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol/Odom.
LeBron only won when he had the likes of Wade/Bosh and then Kyrie/Love on his team.
Etc.

Your argument is as hollow as it can get.

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

[Jonny Blaze]

Prime Brett Favre had an interception percentage of under 2.5% three years in a row then went up to 3.1% up in his 3rd MVP season all while leading the NFL in TD% each time. He did this all while being far more heavily relied on than any other elite QB in that era. The pick machine stuff is nonsense for this stretch of his career. Not to mention that three year run included 3 of the top 7 TD pass totals in NFL history at that point (and if you include the year prior 4 of the top 10). He did this despite losing his best WR to career ending injury right in the middle of that stretch and didn't miss a beat.

In this same 3 year stretch he led his team to three Conference Championship appearances, two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl victory and in each of losses, lost to the team that did win the Super Bowl, by a combined 13 points. He was considered the best player in the NFL because he was (for the first two, don't believe he deserved that 3rd MVP but Detroit only won 9 games).

To recap: He put out the most dominant bulk passing 4 year stretch ever to that point with the only thing keeping him from legendary efficiency, as it was already elite, being his low completion %. Then combined that with excellent team success in one of the most top heavy conferences of all time. The only guy who compared was Steve Young and he was always hurt. So yeah, I'm thinking that revisionist history is not the case.

All I remember is that the Dallas Cowboys never had any problem with Brett Favre.

Brett Favre is 1-9 against Troy Aikman in his career.....and please don't give me that supporting cast excuse that Packers fans always want to use to justify all those ass whippings to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Packers were loaded with great players.

The Green Bay Packers couldn't even beat the Dallas Cowboys in 1996 when they won the Super Bowl and Dallas was in decline.

There is no way Brett Favre deserved the 1995 NFL MVP over Emmit Smith.

Smith set the NFL record for rushing touchdowns that season as well as leading the NFL in rushing for the 4th time. Smith also led the Cowboys to their 3rd Super Bowl victory, and third straight year knocking Favre/Packers out of the playoffs.

I would take Troy Aikman any day of the week over Brett Favre.

One of the all time great dynasties never had a problem with an elite player? You don't say. Just ask the Pistons how they felt about Jordan for years until his team caught up with him. Going 1-9 against Dallas is absolutely irrelevant because that only impacted one of the three seasons in during his MVP stretch aka his prime (95 CC). A stretch that I must point out again he went to the three conference championships and two super bowls, while going on the most prolific passing stretch in the history of the NFL to that point.

The bolded has more to do with you not being a good judge of talent than anything else, especially the Aikman stuff. Not only did he play with an elite WR, RB and OL the majority of his career, all he was ever asked to do was manage games. Every statistic available to us points to this. Based off of this I'm guessing you think Smith was a better back than Barry Sanders too. I was kind of hoping for a more honest debate but this just seems like some obscene rhetoric you came up with years ago and convinced yourself it was true. I gave you plenty of evidence pointing to how Favre was every bit as good as he was regarded as and your response is a full of irrelevant data and silly opinions.

Brett Favre blew games his entire career because he made poor throws in critical parts of the game. Its why he only won one Super Bowl.
Favre has the NFL record for most interceptions ever thrown.

If Troy Aikman threw the ball 35-40 times a game he would also have monster stats just like Favre.

The difference between those two is that Aikman did not make mistakes in post season games. He always came to play.
To this day Troy Aikman is one of the most accurate passers I have ever seen in my life.

Like I stated earlier, Packers fans always want to use the supporting cast argument to tear down Cowboys players while not realizing their team was just as talented as the Dallas Cowboys.

The Dallas Cowboys and Troy Aikman played to win titles. Brett Favre played to enhance his passing statistics.

Aikman has three Super Bowl Victories and a 9-1 record against Brett Favre....including beating the best Packers team Favre was ever on.

I'll take the guy that doesn't make mistakes in playoff games over the NFL all time leading producer of interceptions.

The media has turned on Brett Favre, but back in the day this guy was made out to be this all world talent. I always knew this guy would blow the game when it mattered the most.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[LeBird]

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

Correction, he won twice the amount of titles in an era nowhere near as strong as Bird's.

[Pg81]

Larry Bird never won a title without Robert Parrish or Kevin Mchale.

Parrish and McHale are both in the Hall of Fame. Those three are still the best Front line in NBA history.

Very few players in NBA history ever had the luxury of playing with a Ben Wallace and Kevin Garnett type of talent to protect your backside.

Larry Bird would have never won an NBA title without those two. You are rewriting history to make it sound like Bird did it by himself....which only plays into what I've been saying on this thread.

Michael Jordan never won anything without Pippen, Jackson, Grant and then later Rodman.
Magic never won anything without Kareem, Worthy and Cooper.
Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol/Odom.
LeBron only won when he had the likes of Wade/Bosh and then Kyrie/Love on his team.
Etc.

Your argument is as hollow as it can get.

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

[Warspite]

Michael Jordan never won anything without Pippen, Jackson, Grant and then later Rodman.
Magic never won anything without Kareem, Worthy and Cooper.
Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol/Odom.
LeBron only won when he had the likes of Wade/Bosh and then Kyrie/Love on his team.
Etc.

Your argument is as hollow as it can get.

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

[LeBird]

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

A lot of it is Jordan fans. You see, Bird is the leading example of what an all-time great (one of the GOAT candidates) should do when they enter a team and that is to immediately impact them. Bird joined the 2nd worst team in the league and took them to a 60+ win record and the conference finals in his rookie season, winning the year after. Jordan took years to improve his team to that extent and by then he had Phil Jackson, Pippen and Grant.

They have to **** on Bird so they can make Jordan look good.

[Cavsfansince84]

A lot of it is Jordan fans. You see, Bird is the leading example of what an all-time great (one of the GOAT candidates) should do when they enter a team and that is to immediately impact them. Bird joined the 2nd worst team in the league and took them to a 60+ win record and the conference finals in his rookie season, winning the year after. Jordan took years to improve his team to that extent and by then he had Phil Jackson, Pippen and Grant.

They have to **** on Bird so they can make Jordan look good.

I'm not sure if its Jordan fans or people under 20-25 who see Bird the same way people who are older might see a guy like West or Oscar even though I think they are both great players but they've been blatantly pushed out of the top 10 over the last 10 years. So I think a lot of people maybe think Bird is overrated and don't see how he could really be as good as a lot of people claim he was. So they latch onto things like the idea of him underperforming in the playoffs(which I don't agree with at all) whereas before he was generally thought of as one of the most clutch playoff performers of all time. Maybe MJ and to some degree LeBron have just lifted the bar to where its easier to talk **** about players who came before them.

[Jonny Blaze]

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

Larry Bird isn't any better than Dirk Nowitski and he will tell you so.

If Dirk played with Ben Wallace(Robert Parrish) and Pau Gasol(Kevin Mchale) his entire career the Mavs would have won 4 or 5 titles. Dirk never came close to having the supporting cast that Larry Bird had.

Dirk led two different teams to the NBA Finals with Jason Terry as his second best player. Terry would have been the 5th or 6th best players on all those Celtics teams.

Larry Bird is somewhere between being the #12-17 best player of all time, but he is major league overrated when people put him ahead of Hakeem, Kobe, Tim Duncan or Lebron.

Larry Bird is not a top 10 player of all time.

[Ambrose]

All I remember is that the Dallas Cowboys never had any problem with Brett Favre.

Brett Favre is 1-9 against Troy Aikman in his career.....and please don't give me that supporting cast excuse that Packers fans always want to use to justify all those ass whippings to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Packers were loaded with great players.

The Green Bay Packers couldn't even beat the Dallas Cowboys in 1996 when they won the Super Bowl and Dallas was in decline.

There is no way Brett Favre deserved the 1995 NFL MVP over Emmit Smith.

Smith set the NFL record for rushing touchdowns that season as well as leading the NFL in rushing for the 4th time. Smith also led the Cowboys to their 3rd Super Bowl victory, and third straight year knocking Favre/Packers out of the playoffs.

I would take Troy Aikman any day of the week over Brett Favre.

One of the all time great dynasties never had a problem with an elite player? You don't say. Just ask the Pistons how they felt about Jordan for years until his team caught up with him. Going 1-9 against Dallas is absolutely irrelevant because that only impacted one of the three seasons in during his MVP stretch aka his prime (95 CC). A stretch that I must point out again he went to the three conference championships and two super bowls, while going on the most prolific passing stretch in the history of the NFL to that point.

The bolded has more to do with you not being a good judge of talent than anything else, especially the Aikman stuff. Not only did he play with an elite WR, RB and OL the majority of his career, all he was ever asked to do was manage games. Every statistic available to us points to this. Based off of this I'm guessing you think Smith was a better back than Barry Sanders too. I was kind of hoping for a more honest debate but this just seems like some obscene rhetoric you came up with years ago and convinced yourself it was true. I gave you plenty of evidence pointing to how Favre was every bit as good as he was regarded as and your response is a full of irrelevant data and silly opinions.

Brett Favre blew games his entire career because he made poor throws in critical parts of the game. Its why he only won one Super Bowl.
Favre has the NFL record for most interceptions ever thrown.

If Troy Aikman threw the ball 35-40 times a game he would also have monster stats just like Favre.

The difference between those two is that Aikman did not make mistakes in post season games. He always came to play.
To this day Troy Aikman is one of the most accurate passers I have ever seen in my life.

Like I stated earlier, Packers fans always want to use the supporting cast argument to tear down Cowboys players while not realizing their team was just as talented as the Dallas Cowboys.

The Dallas Cowboys and Troy Aikman played to win titles. Brett Favre played to enhance his passing statistics.

Aikman has three Super Bowl Victories and a 9-1 record against Brett Favre....including beating the best Packers team Favre was ever on.

I'll take the guy that doesn't make mistakes in playoff games over the NFL all time leading producer of interceptions.

The media has turned on Brett Favre, but back in the day this guy was made out to be this all world talent. I always knew this guy would blow the game when it mattered the most.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

More inaccurate opinions and hot takes. Just drop it dude.

[colts19]

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

Larry Bird isn't any better than Dirk Nowitski and he will tell you so.

If Dirk played with Ben Wallace(Robert Parrish) and Pau Gasol(Kevin Mchale) his entire career the Mavs would have won 4 or 5 titles. Dirk never came close to having the supporting cast that Larry Bird had.

Dirk led two different teams to the NBA Finals with Jason Terry as his second best player. Terry would have been the 5th or 6th best players on all those Celtics teams.

Larry Bird is somewhere between being the #12-17 best player of all time, but he is major league overrated when people put him ahead of Hakeem, Kobe, Tim Duncan or Lebron.

Larry Bird is not a top 10 player of all time.

I love Dirk and I have watched basketball all my 70 years of life. Dirk is not even in the same class as Larry and anyone who knows basketball knows that. Was Dirk ever considered by anyone as the Greatest player ever? Bird was. Did Dirk ever win 3 MVPs while playing in the same league as Magic, Kareem, Mj, Moses and Dr. J. I think not. Has any other player gone to a team as bad as the Celtics and raised them to a 60 win team. NO. Same goes for Hakeen, Kobe and Duncan. The only players I would take ahead of Bird in a draft with all being the same age would be Wilt, Kareem, MJ and maybe Lebron. Mostly because most of those guys had longer careers.

[HeartBreakKid]

Larry Bird never won a title without Robert Parrish or Kevin Mchale.

Parrish and McHale are both in the Hall of Fame. Those three are still the best Front line in NBA history.

Very few players in NBA history ever had the luxury of playing with a Ben Wallace and Kevin Garnett type of talent to protect your backside.

Larry Bird would have never won an NBA title without those two. You are rewriting history to make it sound like Bird did it by himself....which only plays into what I've been saying on this thread.

Michael Jordan never won anything without Pippen, Jackson, Grant and then later Rodman.
Magic never won anything without Kareem, Worthy and Cooper.
Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol/Odom.
LeBron only won when he had the likes of Wade/Bosh and then Kyrie/Love on his team.
Etc.

Your argument is as hollow as it can get.

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

The teams Jordan beat weren't nearly as good as the teams Bird faced - so Jordan having a less talented team barely means anything.

Compare the Knicks and Pacers in the 90s 2nd best player to the Bulls - Scottie Pippen is pretty damn hard to beat, and the rest of the Bulls weren't chop livers.

[Johnlac1]

So I've been diving deeper into Bird's career lately, and have come to the conclusion that his consistently poor showings in the playoffs is a much bigger deal than is generally discussed. What I commonly see on this board to explain this stuff away is that Bird's impact comes from things not necessarily captured by the boxscore (spacing, incredible passing, hustle, etc), and I totally get that; it's why I consider Curry to be clearly a better, more valuable basketball player than Durant despite them looking roughly the same in the boxscore.

Here's the thing though... Bird's teams were consistently upset in the playoffs (losing with homecourt 8 times), and he never once won a series without homecourt. I generally don't care too much about that kind of stuff when looking at an individual player's season in isolation, but when a guy consistently underwhelms in the boxscore compared to the regular season AND his teams consistently get upset, it raises some red flags and strongly suggests that his impact in the playoffs is less than the regular season. Only three times in Bird's playoff career did he post a TS% of 54 or better, and not coincidentally the Celtics won it all in two of those three years.

So, a couple questions for you guys: Was Bird's impact in the playoffs less than the regular season, and if so, why and to what degree? How much does this factor into your evaluation of him as a player?

I am old enough to have watched Larry Bird play. The dude is unbelievably overrated.

Larry Bird was a fantastic player. But he had flaws just like anyone else and a lot of them were glossed over because he was the Great White Hype who actually delivered.


Larry Bird is not a top 10 player of all time. He is not the best player in Celtics History.

If Larry Bird played on a normal team and not team loaded with Hall of Famers he wouldn't be considered the legend he is today.

If I could compare it to anyone....its almost like Brett Favre in the NFL. Fantastic talent, but a bigger name because the media loved him.

When Bird was a rookie, the Celts won 61 games compared to 29 the year before. And guess what, Parish, McHale, and Dennis Johnson weren't on the team.
He was a great player not only for what he did himself, but he also made his teammates better.
In short, he's as good as they say he was.

[Pg81]

Your hero was overrated.
Michael Jordan won twice as many titles with nowhere near the surrounding talent that Bird had on the Boston Celtics.

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

Well I do think that Dirk has an edge when it comes to scoring and spacing, defense is a wash but Bird was just an ungodly passer and his hustle was on another level as well which is why Bird is in my top 10 and Dirk in my top 20 and there is nothing to be ashamed of for Dirk imho considering his humble beginnings as a skinny white German kid who had a terrible first season and then got himself into shape to be an all time great by his third season while also being a role model athlete.

Revisionist history at its finest considering that compared to the rest of the league it was the other way around. Jordan jockers crack me up when they make idiotic claims like this when in reality MJ had the luxury of having by far the best team during the 90s and did jack **** without it unlike Bird who lifted a bottom feeder team which was outright terrible to a title in his second year.

Also grow a clue who my "hero" is. Easily deducible if you check the team under my forum name.

I myself have wondered if the current anti-Bird rewriting of history is an attempt to help Dirk but Im starting to wonder if its just a pre cursor to the anti-Dirk agenda that will be coming soon. I dont see Mavs fans trying to prove Dirk>Bird anymore and in fact I see them having more appreciation and respect for him having watched Dirk. So Im just wondering if its the (We cant have 2 all time great white players so either Bird or Dirk has to go) crowd just getting warmed up.

Larry Bird isn't any better than Dirk Nowitski and he will tell you so.

If Dirk played with Ben Wallace(Robert Parrish) and Pau Gasol(Kevin Mchale) his entire career the Mavs would have won 4 or 5 titles. Dirk never came close to having the supporting cast that Larry Bird had.

Dirk led two different teams to the NBA Finals with Jason Terry as his second best player. Terry would have been the 5th or 6th best players on all those Celtics teams.

Larry Bird is somewhere between being the #12-17 best player of all time, but he is major league overrated when people put him ahead of Hakeem, Kobe, Tim Duncan or Lebron.

Larry Bird is not a top 10 player of all time.

Larry Bird will tell you so because he is actually a humble person just like Dirk and Dirk himself would never put himself above Bird either.

Larry Bird has a case for being a top 10 easily. You are just hating on him because he takes a spot away from a player you like better. Let me guess, Kobe?

Oh and by the way, is it too much to ask to write his surname right or does your country not possess the letter "z" in its alphabet?

[Ainosterhaspie]

Has anyone beaten as many all time greats as Bird? I mean he beat Jordan (#1 on most lists), Kareem and Magic (both top five on many lists), Dr. J, Moses Malone, Barkley, Hakeem and Isiah among other all time greats. And he was beating these guys in their primes. I'm a LeBron guy not a Bird guy, but he got it done during a stacked era. He's one of the greats Jordan couldn't, or maybe I should say didn't, beat.

While injury and longevity works against him, he accomplished enough to be an all time great himself and was deserving of the attention and accolades he got.

Yes race was an undercurrent that impacted fans and media of the day, but had he not been white, he still would have gotten very close to the same level of attention, because his team won multiple titles and managed to beat most of the great players and teams of the era, because he was the main guy on that team, because he had clutch performances and because he was continuing the legacy of the sports winningest franchise.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Ron Swanson]

Lol, I won't try to de-rail this thread (if it even can be de-railed any further), but only here can one view Brett Favre's career and call a Super Bowl champion and 3-straight MVP winner a "career choker". Sounds exactly like an anti-Lebron rant. Some of these takes.....oh boy.