Byron Scott was a member of the Showtime Lakers during the 1980s. So he had a front-row ticket to the iconic rivalry between Magic Johnson and The Hick from French Lick. Scott actually won two of his three NBA championships by beating Larry Bird’s Celtics in the NBA Finals.
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But Scott and his Lakers also suffered a Finals loss at the hands of Bird in 1984, so the former NBA star knows just how great Bird was on the court.
“He telling you what he’s gonna do and he’s doing it, so it’s just him being a prophet,” Byron shared on the ‘All the Smoke’ podcast.
Bird gained infamy for his unique brand of trash-talking as he would tell his opponents exactly how he planned on beating them. But according to Scott, the fact that he would still follow through and score an unguardable bucket was what made him a legendary figure.
“Time has a way of making people forget about the past… I’m 60 now, 63, but if you go back 20 years and when I was 40, you ask guys about Larry Bird, they’d tell you. You know brothers at the barbershop, ‘Oh that’s a bad white boy’… So if you go way back, he probably would be in the top 10,” Scott commented on the three-time MVP’s all-time status.
It’s not even an overstatement considering the Hall of Famer’s ridiculous resume. He remains, and probably will remain, the only player in NBA history to win Rookie of the Year, MVP, Finals MVP, All-Star MVP, Coach of the Year, and Executive of the Year in a single lifetime.
Byron Scott saw plenty of Larry Bird during his career
From 1983 to 1992, Scott had to face Larry Legend 33 times on the NBA hardwood. He would win 20 of those matchups, but there was nothing he or any player on his team could do to stop Bird from averaging 24.2 points, 11 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks in those appearances.
B-Scott credited Bird’s incredible box scores to his innate ability and intuition with the basketball. “Dude couldn’t jump, wasn’t fast, wasn’t athletic, but you look on the scoresheet after the game — he got 25 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists, a few steals. The dude just knew how to play,” the 2008 coach of the year said.
“The thing that I loved about him was that he was a s**t talker… The dude would just tell you where he’s going, shoot it in your face, talk s**t to you and run back down the floor,” Scott shared on the ‘Off the Dribble’ podcast.
Bird’s unique game and iconic rivalry with Magic Johnson ushered the NBA into a new era. Byron Scott got to be a part of that history and he clearly remembers it with reverence.
