Imagine working your whole life to become an NBA player. You play two years of junior college ball, then become an All-American at Kansas State. You represent the United States as part of the final amateur U.S. Olympic basketball team. You get drafted fifth overall by the Golden State Warriors. Impressive, right?
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Not for everyone and amazingly for Hall of Famer Mitch Richmond, not even for his grandma. That’s what he said on his recent appearance on Fast Break with Byron Scott.
Richmond described feeling good about himself after having his first big game as a rookie, but he got cut down to size because his grandma’s favorite player was Larry Bird.
“I can remember the first time I scored 20,” Richmond said. “I called my grandmother and I’m like, ‘Hey, I had a good game last night, I had a good game.’ She said, ‘Did you ring that goal like Larry Bird?’ I was like, ‘I didn’t ring it like him, but I mean…'”
Bird really was the total package. He was the league’s first truly great shooter, and he played with such a creative panache that it even jumped off the tiny standard definition TV screens of that era.
Even Richmond recalled the wonder of watching Bird play, saying, “If you remember, his shot used to go off the TV screen. He used to shoot so high. He had a high arc, he would go off the TV screen and then it just drops.”
Bird was also a legendary trash-talker, which is how this story even came up in the first place. Byron Scott mentioned the hick from French Lick as the biggest s***-talker of that time, and Richmond agreed, though he added that Bird was subtle about it.
“He was a quiet s***-talker,” Richmond said. “He would go by you and say, ‘I’m gonna hit this next one.’ He wasn’t loud with it.” Still, Bird was almost always able to get the last word in to leave his opponents speechless.
“I remember we were playing and Tom Tolbert was playing Larry, and guarding him pretty well … Larry picked up the ball and he couldn’t find no one, and Tolbert was all over it. He just turned around and launched it, and Tolbert said, ‘Off! That’s off!’ [Bird] said, ‘Awful good.’
Try to imagine how demoralizing it must have felt for Tolbert to watch Bird “ring that goal” on that shot. It probably felt something like calling your grandma to share in your first great NBA success, only to have her make you feel insignificant next to the Celtics legend.
