On Hoops items

["Greg Odegaard" <gmodegaa@longvred.rmc.com>]

Here are 2 items from On hoops:

The first highlights Geiger, who they think could shine next year.  Where
is the question (and maybe when).

The 2nd is a very interesting look at Bird and his new prescence in the
league.


 
"MATT GEIGER, Charlotte (at the moment)
This isn’t such a bold statement but with Matt Geiger bolting from
Charlotte (do we hear Boston calling?) we will see him take his game to the
next level. We have already seen him do some great things as a starter for
the Hornets but as a full time starter, things will surely change for the
meathead from Georgia Tech. Will never be mistaken for Shaquille O’Neal
defensively, or Charles Manson for that matter, but had 60 more blocks than
the season before and did it in two more minutes from the season before.
Also had 68 more steals, up from 20 a year ago. High percentage shooter and
about average at the line."


The Word is Bird

July 21, 1998 

"In Indiana, they still persist in calling Fred done-nothing-in-the-pros
Hoiberg "The Mayor", but right now you've gotto figure that Larry Bird
could run for Governor and be elected in a landslide of Papua New Guinean
proportions.

When Bird came out of his honorary Celtics front-office comfort zone and
decided to coach the Pacers last summer, league gurus and sportswriters
were falling all over themselves in their wiser-than-thou advice for the
Legend. They hadn't won any rings, gold medals, or MVP awards, and they
didn't listen or believe when Bird publicly said such outrageously
confident things as "whether I'm going to be a great coach or not... I feel
I'm going to be". Instead, they thought they were qualified to tell Larry
to watch his back being around the modern day players, who would behave
differently to the high standards Bird himself displayed during his days in
short pants. They questioned Indiana's ability to respond to Bird's
teaching, and said this was more a feel-good position, and salary, rather
then an investment in a proven winner. They obviously hadn't been watching
old number 33 very closely.

Even in his playing days, on a team which has already produced multiple
head coaches and executives, it was evident that Bird had the sort of mind
to make him successful in anything to do with basketball. Let's face it, a
player with his level of natural athleticism needed to have something on
his side, right? We recall one incident in 1990, when Bird lead the aging
Celtics to 52 wins, one game out of 1st place in the Atlantic, despite
feuding with then-coach Jimmy Rodgers about the direction of the team.
Rodgers wanted to do it one way, Bird wanted the other. Rodgers, being
coach, got his wish, and the C's got bounced in the first round by New
York. Needless to say, Rodgers got the bullet that summer. When Bird
recommends you do something, he's not doing it because he thinks it's the
right way, it's because he knows it's the right way.

And it was the right way. Everything The Larry touched at Indiana seemed to
turn to gold. Coach of the Year, Coach for the East at the All-Star game,
transforming an old, cynical 39-win lottery team into an Eastern Conference
Finalist. And most significantly of all - taking the Bulls to the limit,
the only time the Bulls with a full-time Jordan have been taken to a 7th
game in the Finals since they started winning in 1991. Of all the teams
this year to play Chicago, it was Bird's Pacers who looked the most likely
to beat them. Not the Nets, not the Jazz, certainly not the Hornets.
Indiana, thanks to Miller, thanks to Best, thanks to Smits, thanks to Davis
and Davis and McKey and Rose, and thanks to Larry Bird, almost knocked off
the Bulls dynasty. That really would have been beginner's luck, huh...

During his playing days, Bird didn't always appear to be the perfect
leader, however. While Magic Johnson was wowing crowds on the West coast
with his flashy fastbreaks and happy teeth, Bird was being characterized as
a tougher, perhaps even meaner, brand of superstar. Magic would beat a
team, and as they sat on the bench, they'd be cheering for him on the
inside, and enjoying the show. When the Celtics beat a team, it was more
halfcourt, more trash-talk, more mentally tough as well as physically
demanding. Magic was the social animal, Bird was the anti-Magic. Whether it
was fiction or fact, that's the way we remember it evolving.

So it comes as a surprise to us to find that, in their albeit short stints
as head coaches in the NBA, the relative successes of Bird and Magic are
backwards to what we intrinsically expected. Wouldn't Magic be the great
fun older brother to the Lakers, playing and challenging while at the same
time leading and directing? Wouldn't Bird be the surly character, wracked
by unreasonable expectations of perfectionism and unable to relate to the
black, gen-X players?

In reality, nothing has so far been further from the truth. It's been Bird
who's stepped into the social as well as clinical aspects of coaching a
successful modern-day team, while Magic flared out, and left saying his
players were "uncoachable". In a season in which both Jordan and Bird
achieved so much, you think the Magicman is fulfilled sitting on the set of
his dodgy veriety talk-show?

Bird was so successful as a head coach, so easily able to get his players
to re-new their love of the game, so comfortable being in this role as an
accountable public face of a sporting franchise, that maybe all his
successes even caught him a bit by surprise. Afterall, Larry himself said
coaching is over-rated. Is this just typical Bird modesty, or does he, deep
inside, know that all he achieved this first season was just a
serendipitous happenstance - just freakinsh good luck that is going to be
unable to be duplicated.

We don't know. The Pacers recently moved to give Bird yet another executive
function to go along with his formal duties and informal influences within
the organization. Could they be clearing the way for him to move upstairs,
to leave on a high note and just enjoy life with less risk? Maybe. It would
be unlike Larry Bird to chicken out, but it would also be unlike Larry Bird
to go out a loser."