Um, #1. Magic is one of the greatest players of all time, definite top 10, top 5 on many lists. Yes he could, depending on
this situation. Look at the talented team he did it against, they were not slouches:
1980 76ers
Julius Erving
Darryl Dawkins
Doug Collins
Bobby Jones
Lionel Hollins
Steve Mix
Maurice Cheeks
Caldwell Jones
Clint Richardson
Simply not true. Bird is one of the top 10 (top 3, IMO) players of all time. When you are that good, you can play, and dominate, in any era. You guys act like players "evolve" a ton in just a couple of generations. There is nothing Larry couldn't do on the basketball court. He was also the best ever in clutch/pressure situations.
I was thinking the same thing. He was better his last couple of years when he could barely walk than many of the "good" players are today. He lived and breathed basketball and would beat just about anyone today or ever in one-on-one, taking that player in their prime against him in his prime.
this simply ends the argument....you can lock the thread after this.....
just look at the atlanta players on the bench, you never seen anything like this before....haha look at 3:06 4:14 and 5:07 lmfao....sickening!
and 1 last thing....like FZ said above the LAL and celtic teams of the 80s would obliterate the teams in todays NBA there's no doubt in my mind on that....they would put on a clinic in passing the ball around and shoot lights out vs teams like the heat lakers amd mavs etc...they would get run out of the building
just look at the atlanta players on the bench, you never seen anything like this before....haha look at 3:06 4:14 and 5:07 lmfao....sickening!
and 1 last thing....like FZ said above the LAL and celtic teams of the 80s would obliterate the teams in todays NBA there's no doubt in my mind on that....they would put on a clinic in passing the ball around and shoot lights out vs teams like the heat lakers amd mavs etc...they would get run out of the building
in a hypothetical debate there's a definitive answer and anybody saying anything different is saying stupid shit?
I'm done with this, it's pointless, Bird would play today, he'd keep Kobe to under 10 points, he'd outrebound Garnett, Duncan, Love and any other power forward, he'd outscore anybody he'd be even more dominant today than he was in his day, the athletes haven't gotten better, if anything being slower, weaker and shorter is tougher to play against so Dirk would be wildly overmatched if he played in Birds day, hell he'd be riding the pine.
What a lot of people don't realize, is that Bird could have dropped 60 plenty of times, but he preferred the team game. 9 days earlier McHale had set the Celtics scoring record with 56, and Bird winked at him and told him it wasn't going to last long.
Larry was so good, he'd get bored and do things like... play a game shooting left-handed:
Just looking at the statistics, Bird is clearly better. He is better in just about ever statistic.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html
Three statistics that stand out.
FG% Bird .496, Nowitzki .479
Rebounds: B: 10.3, N: 8.3
Assists: B: 6.3, N: 2.7
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html
Three statistics that stand out.
FG% Bird .496, Nowitzki .479
Rebounds: B: 10.3, N: 8.3
Assists: B: 6.3, N: 2.7
Cheeks was an NBA all-star 4 times, was a finalist for the NBA Hall of Fame, and you're saying he *might* start in today's game? OMG, are you drunk?
Bobby Jones:
What that work added up to was a 12-year pro career that featured eight selections to the NBA All-Defensive First Team; the first-ever NBA Sixth Man Award; membership on the ABA All-Rookie Team; four appearances in the NBA All-Star Game and one in the ABA All-Star Game; and perhaps most prized, an NBA Championship with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983. Above all, Jones’s value as a player was evidenced by the fact that his teams never missed the playoffs.
[h=1]April 1st, 1987, otherwise known as the night Larry Bird triple-doubled by halftime[/h] Posted on <time class="entry-date published" datetime="2014-11-18T16:17:52+00:00">November 18, 2014</time> by Kris Fenrich
Sunday night’s Warriors at Lakers game was one of those contests that sucked me so deeply into its lopsided thrash that I was clueless of the stats – except for Kobe’s shooting and Carlos Boozer’s repeated misses. The Lakers were walloped by a better, smarter, more disciplined team that also played harder. The final score of 136-115 didn’t reveal the truth of the game that GSW was probably 40+ points better. So I was kind of surprised when I found out Steph Curry went for the elusive 30-point/15-assist combo. Someone said he’s the best point guard in the league right now. I don’t agree or disagree, but 30 and 15?
I plugged that line into Basketball-Reference’s game finder and found out that since the 1985-86 season, the 30-15 has been accomplished a whopping 95 times – or just over three times/season so it’s kind of like a no hitter in terms of frequency although the baseball season is nearly twice as long as the NBA season. This was Curry’s fifth time making the list so he’s got a ways to go to catch the king of the 30-15: Magic Johnson who had 15 such games, four of which were triple doubles including some video game-esque ridiculous night back in November of 1988 when he put up 32 points, 20 assists, and 10 rebounds. But on this long list of 30-15s, it was Magic’s rival that stood out. (Of course it was.)
On the night of April 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 1987, Larry Bird stepped into the Boston Garden facing the Bullets of Washington. The Celts were 53-20 and battling the Atlanta Hawks for home court supremacy in the East. The Bullets were 36-35, just a middle-of-the-road team with a still-dominant Moses Malone and a decent bearded off-guard named Jeff Malone (not related). Boston was without its dominant gangly big man and current Rockets coach, Kevin McHale who earned All-NBA first team honors for the only time in his career that season. Boston was also missing Bill Walton and Dennis Johnson came off the bench for the only time all season. The stage was set for Bird to show out so that’s what he did.
With unfamiliar starters around him, Bird wasted no time dictating all elements of the game. As Bob Ryan wrote in the Boston Globe the following day: “By the first timeout, a little over five minutes into the game, he had 2 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. By the quarter he had totals of 12, 5 and 5.”
While Larry was busy doing everything, his team was only up three after the first quarter and so he continued to carry the short-handed Celtics in the second as he worked the glass and repeatedly found cutters for easy buckets. Globe writer John Powers compared one of his passes to something Bernie Kosar would throw – this was All-Pro quality Kosar, not 30 for 30 maybe-kinda-probably drunk Kosar. Powers also wrote “He (Bird) created each of Boston’s final five hoops before intermission, three of them layups by Ainge and Johnson.”
In what was probably a completely honest, irony-free assessment, Bird had this to say about the 15 assists he racked up on the evening: “Everybody was just hitting the shots when I was passing. It’s not really surprising when guys are hitting.” Oh, you modest Larry Bird. At the half, with Boston up a single point, Bird’s stat line read 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists.
In post-game comments, both Boston Coach KC Jones and Washington Coach Kevin Loughery, a pair of grizzled NBA career men, gushed about Bird’s performance. Keep in mind, these are guys that had seen it all from Russell to Wilt to West, Oscar, Kareem, Magic and Bird plenty of other times before, but a triple double in the first half scrambled even their finely tuned understanding of what is and isn’t capable in an NBA first half.
Loughery: “I never saw a guy have a triple-double by halftime and I’ve been around for a lot of years. He’s just fantastic.”
Jones, after being told of Bird’s first half line: “And I said ‘What? WHAT? Give me the stat sheet.’”
With 24 minutes to play in a one-point game, Bird was just getting lathered up. He continued his assault throughout the second half, cranking out an audacious 30 points, 17 rebounds, and 15 assists while tossing in three blocks for good measure. And you’re damn right Boston won the game: 103-86. For what it’s worth, Bird is the only player since the 85-86 season to put up 30, 15 and 15. It’s entirely possible and even probable that Oscar Robertson, he of the 30ppg, 12.5rpg, and 11.4apg season had his own 30-15-15, but until some basketball blogging version of Indiana Jones unearths the comprehensive box scores or score sheets and scans them into digital format, Bird will remain the king of 30-15-15 with his royal head covered in that eternally fair-haired crown.
As I read through the Globe write-ups the comments from teammates and opponents were as great as the immaculate stat line. At one point, the veteran Bob Ryan just listed off quotes from an overwhelmed Bullets coaching staff:
“You seldom see a guy dominate a game the way he did tonight. That’s as dominant as I’ve seen an individual all season.” – Loughery
“You know how you set your car on cruise control? Well, he set his at 75 and stayed there the whole time.” – Bullets assistant Fred Carter
“That (expletive) Bird is pretty good.” – Bullets assistant Bill Blair
When Bird accomplished his 30-15 feat back in 1987, Steph Curry wasn’t even born. But were it not for Curry’s optimal performance (in under 30 minutes no less!), I maybe never would’ve discovered Larry’s game. I guess it’s true when they say that time is a flat circle in which 30 point, 15 assist games spin forever.
Sunday night’s Warriors at Lakers game was one of those contests that sucked me so deeply into its lopsided thrash that I was clueless of the stats – except for Kobe’s shooting and Carlos Boozer’s repeated misses. The Lakers were walloped by a better, smarter, more disciplined team that also played harder. The final score of 136-115 didn’t reveal the truth of the game that GSW was probably 40+ points better. So I was kind of surprised when I found out Steph Curry went for the elusive 30-point/15-assist combo. Someone said he’s the best point guard in the league right now. I don’t agree or disagree, but 30 and 15?
I plugged that line into Basketball-Reference’s game finder and found out that since the 1985-86 season, the 30-15 has been accomplished a whopping 95 times – or just over three times/season so it’s kind of like a no hitter in terms of frequency although the baseball season is nearly twice as long as the NBA season. This was Curry’s fifth time making the list so he’s got a ways to go to catch the king of the 30-15: Magic Johnson who had 15 such games, four of which were triple doubles including some video game-esque ridiculous night back in November of 1988 when he put up 32 points, 20 assists, and 10 rebounds. But on this long list of 30-15s, it was Magic’s rival that stood out. (Of course it was.)
On the night of April 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 1987, Larry Bird stepped into the Boston Garden facing the Bullets of Washington. The Celts were 53-20 and battling the Atlanta Hawks for home court supremacy in the East. The Bullets were 36-35, just a middle-of-the-road team with a still-dominant Moses Malone and a decent bearded off-guard named Jeff Malone (not related). Boston was without its dominant gangly big man and current Rockets coach, Kevin McHale who earned All-NBA first team honors for the only time in his career that season. Boston was also missing Bill Walton and Dennis Johnson came off the bench for the only time all season. The stage was set for Bird to show out so that’s what he did.
With unfamiliar starters around him, Bird wasted no time dictating all elements of the game. As Bob Ryan wrote in the Boston Globe the following day: “By the first timeout, a little over five minutes into the game, he had 2 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. By the quarter he had totals of 12, 5 and 5.”
While Larry was busy doing everything, his team was only up three after the first quarter and so he continued to carry the short-handed Celtics in the second as he worked the glass and repeatedly found cutters for easy buckets. Globe writer John Powers compared one of his passes to something Bernie Kosar would throw – this was All-Pro quality Kosar, not 30 for 30 maybe-kinda-probably drunk Kosar. Powers also wrote “He (Bird) created each of Boston’s final five hoops before intermission, three of them layups by Ainge and Johnson.”
In what was probably a completely honest, irony-free assessment, Bird had this to say about the 15 assists he racked up on the evening: “Everybody was just hitting the shots when I was passing. It’s not really surprising when guys are hitting.” Oh, you modest Larry Bird. At the half, with Boston up a single point, Bird’s stat line read 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists.
In post-game comments, both Boston Coach KC Jones and Washington Coach Kevin Loughery, a pair of grizzled NBA career men, gushed about Bird’s performance. Keep in mind, these are guys that had seen it all from Russell to Wilt to West, Oscar, Kareem, Magic and Bird plenty of other times before, but a triple double in the first half scrambled even their finely tuned understanding of what is and isn’t capable in an NBA first half.
Loughery: “I never saw a guy have a triple-double by halftime and I’ve been around for a lot of years. He’s just fantastic.”
Jones, after being told of Bird’s first half line: “And I said ‘What? WHAT? Give me the stat sheet.’”
With 24 minutes to play in a one-point game, Bird was just getting lathered up. He continued his assault throughout the second half, cranking out an audacious 30 points, 17 rebounds, and 15 assists while tossing in three blocks for good measure. And you’re damn right Boston won the game: 103-86. For what it’s worth, Bird is the only player since the 85-86 season to put up 30, 15 and 15. It’s entirely possible and even probable that Oscar Robertson, he of the 30ppg, 12.5rpg, and 11.4apg season had his own 30-15-15, but until some basketball blogging version of Indiana Jones unearths the comprehensive box scores or score sheets and scans them into digital format, Bird will remain the king of 30-15-15 with his royal head covered in that eternally fair-haired crown.
As I read through the Globe write-ups the comments from teammates and opponents were as great as the immaculate stat line. At one point, the veteran Bob Ryan just listed off quotes from an overwhelmed Bullets coaching staff:
“You seldom see a guy dominate a game the way he did tonight. That’s as dominant as I’ve seen an individual all season.” – Loughery
“You know how you set your car on cruise control? Well, he set his at 75 and stayed there the whole time.” – Bullets assistant Fred Carter
“That (expletive) Bird is pretty good.” – Bullets assistant Bill Blair
When Bird accomplished his 30-15 feat back in 1987, Steph Curry wasn’t even born. But were it not for Curry’s optimal performance (in under 30 minutes no less!), I maybe never would’ve discovered Larry’s game. I guess it’s true when they say that time is a flat circle in which 30 point, 15 assist games spin forever.
if no rule was broken, it's not shady, it's legal
and do you really want to argue all rule changes are for the good?
If this joint is THIS hard up for traffic...... burn the SOB to the ground.
Are you serious...... this (Bird vs The German) has got to be one of the dumbest questions ever uttered by a human being!
All the people (many) saying Bird would not be great in today's game...... all children with NO knowledge of the game!
Are you serious...... this (Bird vs The German) has got to be one of the dumbest questions ever uttered by a human being!
All the people (many) saying Bird would not be great in today's game...... all children with NO knowledge of the game!
