Less than two weeks after helping the Dream Team etch itself into the history books as the most dominant collection of basketball talent ever assembled, Larry Bird hung up his sneakers and called it a career. That was 33 years ago today.
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Bird retired with three rings, three MVPs and a reputation as a shooter that was perhaps surpassed only by his talent as a trash-talker.
Larry Bird was ruthless on the court. He once shot the ball left-handed just to prove that he could, and he wound up dropping a 47-point triple-double on the Portland Trail Blazers in a 120-119 overtime win. Afterward, he said he was saving his right hand for the LA Lakers, whom the Boston Celtics were set to face the next night.
Before the 1988 3-Point Contest, Bird famously walked into the locker room and asked his competitors, “Who’s coming in second?” then proceeded to dust them for his third straight title.
Even in retirement, Bird couldn’t help but stick it to the competition. After being told at his retirement press conference that his fellow Dream Teamer Patrick Ewing had said that he was going to miss busting his chops on the court, Bird responded by saying, “He’s had 8 years to bust me, and he hasn’t done it yet, so I couldn’t stay around a lifetime and wait on him.”
Ewing wore number 33, just as Bird did, but he should have known better than to give the Celtics legend a reason to put him in his crosshairs. In his career, Bird was 17-4 in the regular season against Ewing, and 5-4 in the playoffs, with each winning one series.
Ewing’s Knicks did overcome an 0-2 deficit to win three straight and knock the Celtics out of the 1990 playoffs, but other than that, it was all Bird, almost all the time. Ewing did bust Bird that one time, though, which is more than a lot of players could say.
It was very rare for Bird to outwardly express admiration for an opposing player, but seconds after roasting Ewing, he did give props to Lakers great Michael Cooper.
“The best defensive player that ever guarded me was Michael Cooper,” Bird said. “I’ll take that to my grave with me. He was a very intelligent defensive player, he was very focused, and it was great to play against him, because I was at a level at that time that I thought I was playing some pretty great basketball, and he was able to guard me pretty well.”
The Celtics and the Lakers conducted arguably the greatest rivalry in sports history during the 1980s, and, though Bird was always linked with rival Magic Johnson, it was usually Cooper who was assigned to stop him. Just as he had a deep respect for Magic’s game, he also respected Cooper’s.
Even though it’s now 33 years since his retirement, Bird’s virtuosity on the court and with his words lives on.
