Peter May On Larry Bird And Celtic Management

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[
      [The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]

         [Boston Globe Online / Sports]

      In this shuffle, Bird was dealt out

      He saw no place in Celtic organization

      By Peter May, Globe Staff, 09/27/98

''I'm happy to stay on with the Celtics and help them as
much as I possibly can. Hopefully, I can do a good job
for them... I'm excited to be going into a new life. I
gave my heart and body and soul to the Celtics and
        hopefully we can still have a good relationship.''
                 -Larry Bird, August 1992

Only Larry Bird and the Celtics know why things never did
work out for him in Boston. He has gone on to bigger and
better things in Indiana and the Celtics have spent $50
million to hire a new coach. That's also the going cost
of credibility these days.

The day Bird announced his retirement as a player, the
basketball boss of the Celtics was Dave Gavitt. Chris
Ford was the coach, Jan Volk was the general manager, and
there was a three-man ownership group with a
basketball-savvy individual (Alan Cohen) in control. All
are gone now. And so is Bird.

On that rainy August day in 1992, it was assumed by
everyone in the Celtics' top-level management that Bird
was going to be a Boston lifer. Gavitt said Bird would
continue to have a ''special relationship'' with the
team. Red Auerbach noted how happy he was that Bird
''will continue to have some input in the ballclub.''
Bird was bullish, too.

''They're a great organization and they're giving me an
opportunity to do something I want to do,'' said Bird. He
even made a disparaging remark about his home state.

''I go home in the summer,'' he said of Indiana. ''I
don't want to live there in the wintertime.''

Gavitt said he had given Bird a blank piece of paper and
told him to write down whatever job he wanted. Bird
deferred. Gavitt said, ''All right then, let's try to
rule out some things. Coaching?''
The response from Bird: ''No way.''

Bird wasn't kidding. He never wanted to coach, especially
the Celtics. At that point in his life, his health was
his No. 1 priority and he was hearing things he didn't
want to hear.

''People forget that my back at that time was still
messed up,'' said Bird, who will be in Springfield Friday
for his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. ''I
was told that I might not be able to do much at all. The
last thing I was thinking of doing was getting involved
again. I had to take care of my back.''

He did. He underwent a spinal fusion operation and -
voila - he felt good again. One by one, however, the
Celtics' upper management began to change. Gavitt was
forced out. Cohen was forced out. In 1994, Celtics owner
Paul Gaston decided that M.L. Carr was the man he wanted
to run his basketball operation. Bird, still on the
payroll as a consultant, started getting antsy.
By 1997, Carr was into his third year as director of
basketball operations and second as coach. The franchise
was a joke. Bird clandestinely was assigned the task of
seeking out coaching candidates. While he was doing that,
the Indiana Pacers were making clandestine plans of their
own to change coaches - and had their eyes on Bird.

''The thing is,'' Bird said, ''I knew [the Celtics] were
going to make wholesale changes. I knew the best thing to
do was to get out, especially with someone coming in that
I didn't know.''

In his job as coach-finder, one of those Bird approached
was Rick Pitino. They chatted a few times. When that got
out, Pitino said that he was flattered but not interested
in the Boston job. He also said that if were to take the
job, it would only be with Bird there as well.

Reminded of that statement, Bird suppresses a chuckle. He
may not have known Pitino was coming, but he did know
that the two could not coexist.

''With Pitino taking that job,'' Bird said, ''it was time
for me to move on. He was set in his ways. And I would be
like Clinton - a lame duck.''
That led to Indiana. Bird is happy with the choice he
made. The Celtics, presumably, are happy with theirs. The
idea of a Bird/Pitino combo may have looked appetizing on
paper, but that's about as far as it went.
''I think it would be better for me and for Rick if I
wasn't there looking over his shoulder,'' Bird said. ''I
needed a fresh start and thought that maybe I could be in
that position somewhere else.''

This story ran on page E02 of the Boston Globe on
09/27/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.