And Ron Artest was known for his short temper. I’d have loved to see Larry mess with him.
I did not know that about Larry Bird! I looked it up after seeing this post and apparently his trash talking skills and his ability to psych people out are legendary lol
Basketball was a different game back then. As many fists thrown as insults.
I don’t really follow or care about basketball, but I grew up during the showtime era and had a relative in LA. Bird was feared. Every so often I’ll disappear down a YouTube rabbit hole about him. Dude ruled
I love watching the old Bird trash talking videos. I hated him back then just because I was a Lakers fan, but I had no idea he talked so much. James Worthy said,“Larry Bird was an asshole!”
He was the kind of guy who would tell you exactly what he was going to do to score on you, then execute. Again and again. Can you imagine how demoralizing that’d be? This guy tells you how he’s going to beat you, and you’re powerless to stop him. You have to stand there and watch the man toss it in.
Etan Thomas describes an all-time sonning by Tim Duncan:
“So we’re playing the Spurs and I get the ball on the post. I inside pivot and sweep to the middle for my jump hook and he blocks it. So as we are running down the court he says to me “that was a good move but you have to get more into my body so you can either draw the foul or I can’t block it”. So I didn’t know if he was talking noise or what so just kind of looked at him confused and said ok. Then, a few plays later I did it again got more into his body and he couldn’t block it. I missed the shot and he looked at me and said much better and kept playing lol.”
https://www.sportscasting.com/tim-duncan-was-so-nice-he-taught-opponents-how-to-beat-him/
Now if the spurs would just stop losing so much this season 😭😤😮💨
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In a non-dunking kind of way. He wasn’t a dunker.
He’s not really known for it, but at 6’10" or whatever, he didn’t have any issue dunking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBeOYyfsA8
I didn’t mean that he couldn’t, just that he was more focused on shooting.
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Somebody else can pull out the statistics but in my mind Bird was the best three point shooter that ever was.
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Joe DiMaggio was a dunker though.
I believe Worthy is also quoted as saying, “Jordan will make you look slow, Bird will make you look stupid.”
Trash talking :
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I live in Terre Haute, where Indiana State University is. He played here in college. There’s a huge ugly statue of him that looks like he’s constipated outside the basketball arena and, no shit, they’re building a Larry Bird Museum at the convention center.
I hate this fucking town.
Here’s the statue:
That’s actually much better than he looked in real life.
I don’t sports and even I’ve heard the tales of Lawrence The Bird
The Hick from French Lick!
