Larry Legend retires again

As a lifelong Celtics fan, I concur.

 

Let's hope we get another one in our lifetimes.

 

But he never actually played on the 70 team. He sat out that entire season with injury. And he doesn't have any front office accomplishments on his resume.

 

Was he ever technically a front office person? No. But if you don't think that he had a large say in what happened with player personnel decisions (especially with the Lakers after he chased Jerry West off), you're nuts.

 

And he never was a starter. Jackson was a great role player on those Knick teams but not in the same sentence as Bird / West / Russell when it comes to overall NBA body of work.

 

Meh. Was only in the ABA because he failed to make the NBA. And he has no front office accomplishments that I'm aware of. And was perhaps the single most despicable human in sports history (source: Starman), but he did believe in playing the right way--so there's that.

 

why now? This is a team that held a series lead on the eventual NBA champs and has a lot of younger talent in the locker room. It seems like they may be on the verge of breaking through into contender territory. Why walk away now instead of seeing if you can get them into the Finals in the next couple of years.

 

Bird is 55 and has a pretty serious heart condition and a family history working against him. Those jobs are stressful as hell.

 

Oddly enough, he had similar timing with his coaching career--retiring right after finally getting the Pacers to the Finals. Seems he likes to go out on top--maybe it's a lesson learned from his playing career, where he spent the last four years trying to play perpetually injured with a broken back.

 

This is the same guy who walked away from coaching the year he took the Pacers to the NBA Finals and won Coach of the Year, so this is not the first time Bird has walked away when things were good. Bird has persistent back and shoulder problems that he's going to get treated, problems bad enough that it was painful for him to do a basic part of the job -- sit down for long periods and watch film. Plus, Bird operated on a year-to-year handshake, which made it easy for him to walk away when the time was right. Looking back, the machinations over forcing out David Morway and bringing in Kevin Pritchard were designed to ensure he had everything he wanted in place before he left. Plus, it doesn't hurt that Donnie Walsh is coming back.

I wouldn't be shocked to see Bird re-emerge in a few years in some capacity, assuming his health issues are taken care of.

 

One of my favorite SI covers of all time.

 

Not often that one gets a chance to correct Bob Cook on Pacer matters: Bird actually won the coach of the year award in 98 (when the team improved from 39 to 58 wins in his first season coaching), a couple years before reaching the Finals. Just felt like being nitpicky--the overriding point about him going out on top is absolutely valid.