Bird's record as talent evaluator

["Josh Ozersky" <jozersky1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bird has never, to my knowledge, made a major mistake
about talent.  He singled out Paul Pierce as the best pro
of his draft class, Anfernee Hardaway in his, and other
examples too numerous to count.  He predicted, after his
sophomore season, that Dee Brown would never be
any better than he was; he predicted that Keith Van Horn would
be underwhelming; and all his other basketball opinions have been
impeccable, as far as I can remember.  It would not surprise me to see Larry
become the next great front-office guru, after Jerry West fades into the
sunset.


It's not bad advice if you can't see into the future.  The thing I
like about Larry is that he doesn't change his tune.
He felt that Eric Montross had the potential to be a very good
player, but that his constantly being traded, and implicitly his
being coached by ML Carr for the first two years of his career,
crippled his career.  He said that he liked Donyell Marshall
before Marshall rejuvenated himself in Utah, at a time when the
guy was conidered a complete zero.  Heinsohn also liked Croshere
better than KVH, and I bet if you see Austin anwhere but Indiana
under Isiah, he will go back to being one of the better starting forwards
in the league.  Or maybe not; the point is that Larry saw this in
Croshere long before his emergence against the Lakers.