Larry Legend vs. the supposed King: why Bird is the superior all-around player to James
Better skills and intangibles, and less star treatment in a much tougher era/East lift Birdie over ‘Bron
Of course since James has a far more unique first name than the pedestrian Larry, fits the visual stereotype and has a superficially flashier style of play, and is the beneficiary of much greater media coverage and Internet play today as a current standout – many succumb to now-ism and an an over-emphasis on flash and superior speed/leaping ability, and thus tend to think James has somehow surpassed Larry Legend.
Basketball, far more than other major team sports, has created a fan mindset that values or prioritizes style points as much or more than simply getting the job done, especially compared to baseball, hockey or football. Football especially celebrates the big uglies (linemen) who do the unspectacular grunt work.
But in hoops there is far too much emphasis on artistic offensive style, often of a very superficial or unnecessary variety. Isiah Thomas has called this mindset “winning plus”, where simply winning or getting the job done is not enough. How smooth or cool one looks from shoes, tattoos, jerseys and overall appearance to style of play counts more than efficient quality production, particularly in an increasingly visually-oriented society.
Wearing far less clothing than other sports and being much closer to the fans in the stands than other sports also sets basketball apart, and places more value on appearance. You can actually see a basketball player’s face and expressions as opposed to football players in helmets or other sport players in 80,000-seat stadiums.
So if a player doesn’t look as smooth or play like the stereotypical superstar many fans been brainwashed and/or accustomed to seeing, they tend to suspect they are not as good as others who are flashier, especially someone who looked like Larry Bird.
To the vast majority due to his physique and easily appreciated physical style of play, LeBron James also simply looks and plays much more like an NBA all-time superstar than the subtler, almost everyman-looking Bird to them.
Recently I had a college-age LeBron fan, clad in a new gold James Laker jersey, smugly brag with certainty that he was the greatest player of all time. When I simply replied that I thought Larry Bird was the greatest player ever, he sneered and without even giving Bird’s candidacy a single thought, immediately and disdainfully intoned that Larry was “not even close.”
Of course, he reached this uninformed opinion probably without even knowing much or anything of Bird’s career stats/history, his overall edge in the phases of the game, or having even seen Bird play, except perhaps in a few video clips.
And those clips probably came from the second half of his career when Larry was riddled with back and Achilles injuries, which reinforced the misconception that Bird was not very athletic. Not to mention the fact that Bird’s game was more subtle and less superficially attention-getting than that of James.
As far as position goes James, since he handles (read monopolizes) the ball far more than Bird ever did, has really evolved into much more of a guard than a forward over the last several seasons.
I would argue that virtually EVERYTHING James has attained in his career, and he has accomplished a lot, is tainted by constant uncalled traveling, palming, and offensive foul violations. If one cannot see these regular and flagrant infractions of the rules, they are either brainwashed, don’t know the rules, don’t care and just wat tobe mindlessly entertained, and/or are just diehard James backers.
And don’t try to argue that everyone in the NBA travels, so what is an extra step? First, James and other superstars today get 2-3 extra steps, compared to the regular player, who is usually granted an extra step. The fact that NBA refs tend to actually call traveling fairly strictly on reserves and third stringers only proves that they really do know what walking is, yet choose to let it go when the big names do it.
NBA officials actually also call the difficult charge/block foul better than college and high school refs, but they again make obvious excpetions for the star players. The preferential treatment James gets is like letting Roger Federer hit into the doubles alley in a singles match, or giving Mike Trout five strikes an at bat. Already great players don’t need that extra edge to insure they will triumph.
James’s accomplishments are lessened as well as by having played his first 15 years in a historically terrible Eastern Conference with relatively little team or individual competition compared to Bird.
For most of LBJ’s career, the NBA (East) he has dominated is a diluted and bloated 30-team product dragged down by over-expansion, poor fundamentals and a product geared more toward entertainment than fierce competition.
The East was the weak junior varsity half of the league during LeBron’s tenure with Cleveland and Miami, whereas the East was incredibly top-heavy with great teams during Bird’s career. Thus the “eight straight years in the Finals” argument for James is incredibly weak. Put the Hall of Fame-laden Bird Celtics in the NBA of the past decade and they would have won 10 straight conference crowns and almost that many NBA titles.
The league Bird ruled over for a decade was chock full of super teamss and far more top of the line Hall of Fame players. The big rivals he and the Celtics conquered (namely the 76ers, Lakers, Pistons and Bucks) and faced usually featured four to five Hall of Famers and All-Stara in the lineup. The league since then has been full of champin teams featuring one or two big stars and several complemtary players.
Unfortunately this opinion is all too common today when unlike baseball and hockey, basketball does not respect or revere its past. Ask a fan who the greatest baseball player ever was, and the most common answer is probably Babe Ruth, even though he retired 84 years ago and dominated as a pitcher and hitter well before the color barrier was broken.
Others might say Willie Mays (1951-73) or Mickey Mantle (1951-68), and it is fairly commonly held by many baseball experts that Ted Williams (1939-60) was the greatest hitter ever. All of these players RETIRED LONG before Bird (1979-92) even played a game in the NBA, yet his memory seems somehow as distant or moreso as those aforementioned greats who starred well before him.
In hockey history, Wayne Gretzky is usually invoked when the greatest ever argument comes up. Fair enough, but old-timers might state a case for Gordie Howe, who played into his early 50’s up to the late 1970s, or Bobby Orr (1966-79), Bird’s Boston sports ice hockey analogue. Howe (Father), Orr (Son) and Gretzky (Holy Ghost) have been dubbed hockey’s “Holy Trinity.”
Gordie once said that if a player came along who was better all-around than Bobby, he hoped the good Lord would keep him alive long enough to see him. I’m not sure Gretzky wa sbetter than Orr, all-around.
As an aside, Bird was once asked at a banquet what he was usually gazing at high in the rafters of the old Boston Garden during the playing of the national anthem. When the normally tight-lipped Bird answered that he was looking at Orr’s retired Bruins number 4 jersey, the humble Bruin was stunned and moved to tears.
Like Orr, Bird came to Boston as a much-awaited savior from the hinterlands when their teams were at the bottom. Orr was only 18 when he arrived from the minors from northern Ontario, and by his fourth season the Bruins were Stanley Cup champions for the first time since 1941.
Hailing from small-town southern Indiana Larry was almost 23 when he came to Boston – although as a transfer the Celts drafted him as a junior-eligible in 1978, he stayed in college to finish his degree – and two years after they finished last in the East he led Boston to the title in just his second season to ignite the third Celtic dynasty.
In Bird’s first seven seasons, he led Boston to the best regular season record six times, despite playing in a loaded East with the 76ers and
Bucks, and later the resurgent Pistons and Hawks.
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