Slate article on Larry Bird

[Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Hi List:

Slate Magazine today reprinted the following archived article about
Larry Bird.

Beat LA!


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Larry Bird
Is he as good a coach as he was a player?
By David Plotz
Posted Saturday, May 16, 1998, at 4:30 p.m. PT

       (...) Bird, a thing of beauty and a joy forever as a player, is
turning out to be a fabulous coach, too. When lured out of retirement a
year ago--he was "bored to death" of fishing and golfing--the Pacers had
just finished a miserable 39-43 season, had missed the playoffs, and
were led by a core of aging, disgruntled players. This year, with a
virtually identical roster, Bird has coached Indiana to a 58-24
record--the best in the team's history. Tuesday, Bird was
named--deservedly--the NBA's Coach of the Year. Wednesday his team
finished off the New York Knicks to advance to the conference finals.

     Larry Legend's emergence as a coaching phenom is surprising. In
part it's so because when he played for the Celtics, he used to say he
would never coach in the NBA. It's also surprising because Bird the
Coach is not much like Bird the Player, at least not in the ways you
might expect.

       At Indiana State University and during his early NBA career, Bird
gulled fans, opposing players, and the media. He played the rube. He had
grown up in the small, poor Indiana town of French Lick, and he dubbed
himself the "Hick from French Lick." His redneck accent and
unsophisticated clothes reinforced the impression that he was a dim good
ol' boy. So did his doughy face, blond feathered hair, and beaky nose.
(The 6-foot-9-inch Bird looks, appropriately, very much like Big Bird.)

     But behind that bumpkin's exterior lurked a man of endless guile
and will. Bird may have been slow, but he was an astounding passer, an
elegant shooter, a vicious rebounder, and the league's toughest
competitor. He was always busy on the court: If he didn't make the
assist, he made the basket; if he didn't make the basket, he grabbed the
rebound; if he didn't grab the rebound, he made the steal. He was also a
relentless psychological warrior. So taciturn in public, Bird was the
NBA's most notorious trash talker, mocking opponents' attempts to guard
him. (Once, when Magic rushed over to stop him, Larry stared at him,
said, "You know you're too late," and buried a jumper.) Bird goaded and
inspired his own teammates, and they heeded him: If he told a teammate
to do something, he did it. Thanks in large part to Bird, the Celtics
were a team, single-minded and selfless.

       Bird and Magic are permanently yoked in NBA legend. They entered
the NBA together, rose together, retired together. One of the greatest
achievements of each is that he destroyed the stereotype about himself.
Magic, the black, mouthy, "Showtime" guard, won over basketball fogies
with his sound fundamentals and court intelligence. Bird, the solid
white guy, won over Magic's fans with his creative shooting and flashy
passing.

     So why is Bird's coaching career taking off when Magic's flopped?
Magic's 16-game stint coaching the Los Angeles Lakers was a disaster. He
failed as a coach for the reason that other great players have failed as
coaches: He thought about himself too much. He complained his players
didn't care about the game the way he did. He felt he still belonged on
the court. But the 41-year-old Bird has a cranky back, and he's
accomplished everything any basketball player could ever dream of. He
doesn't want to play anymore, and he doesn't need to show off.

       As a result, Bird is a very effective, very unobtrusive leader.
The player who used to be involved in every play has become a coach who
is hardly involved in any of them. Player Bird was a maximalist; Coach
Bird is a minimalist. His predecessor as Pacers coach, Larry Brown,
hectored and nit-picked in practices and games. Bird is quiet, has short
meetings, and never chews out his players publicly. He doesn't criticize
them when they make turnovers or commit fouls, and he doesn't tell them
how to play. He treats them as professionals, just as he liked his
coaches to treat him.

    Bird's coaching philosophy, which he repeats over and over, is "It's
a player's game." He laid down a few commandments: Thou shalt be well
conditioned; thou shalt be on time; thou shalt not hot-dog. Then he let
his players do their jobs.

       Pacers guard Mark Jackson explained Bird's hands-off style this
way to the Denver Post: "You don't have to tell Chris Mullin how to come
off a pick. You don't have to tell Reggie Miller what to do when he
catches the ball in the fourth quarter. You don't have to teach Rik
Smits how to make post moves."

The laissez-faire philosophy has worked wonders on the Pacers. Last
year, they were spooked. This season, they sense Bird's trust. They play
confidently, hustle, and never choke in the fourth quarter. They're
selfless: They have the most balanced scoring of any NBA team. It's true
that the Pacers don't play beautiful or acrobatic basketball. They play
something much rarer in the NBA these days: team basketball. The
greatest tribute to Bird is that his players now play as he used to.

       With typical canniness, Bird chose to coach a team that would
listen to him. The Pacers are veterans. The average age in the starting
lineup is 32, and the roster is filled by NBA workhorses such as Mullin,
Jackson, and Dale Davis. They have only one star, Miller, and no prima
donnas.

     Would Bird manage a different group of players? It's a full-time
job just controlling the young hotheads on some NBA squads. Like many
NBA old-timers, Bird deplores the MTVification of the league. He doesn't
like its glitz and disapproves of young players' greed. And he has said
he wouldn't want to coach a team of youngsters.

       Bird might not want to coach kids, but he surely could. The Pacer
who has made the most improvement under Bird is Jalen Rose. Rose used to
be the NBA head case par excellence. When he entered the NBA a few years
ago, he was supposed to be the next Magic, a 6-foot-8-inch guard who
could do everything. But Rose struggled, pouted mightily, feuded with
coaches, and generally demoralized himself and the players around him.
Under Bird, he has settled in happily as a Pacers role player. He's
playing a little more, scoring a little more, and cooperating a lot
more. Bird gave him respect, and Rose reciprocated.

       It would be a fitting reward for Bird if his mature, Calvinist
style did catch on around the league. Maybe, just as he helped revive
pro basketball as a player in the early '80s, he can revive the game as
a coach in the late '90s, saving it for a generation of kids who never
saw Larry Legend play.