Re: Slate article on Larry Bird

["Jaims" <jaims@impactnet.com>]

Hey Joe.  I love this article!  Thanks.

Jaims
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>
To: <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 11:13 PM
Subject: Slate article on Larry Bird


> Hi List:
> 
> Slate Magazine today reprinted the following archived article about
> Larry Bird.
> 
> Beat LA!
> 
> 
> ---------
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
>