He was the ultimate white player on the ultimate white team in the ultimate white city in a time when the white player was quickly becoming obsolete. The white player in basketball was supposed to be over and done with. This was the black man's game now.
Thing is, no one told Larry Bird.
I was a kid when Larry Bird was showing his ass all over the NBA. At that time, I was a Sixers fan, because my dad was a Sixers fan. I wasn't really watching basketball then. I didn't find out about the Celtics/Sixers rivalry until I got much older. I didn't have any Larry Bird memories. All I know is I couldn't stand Larry Bird or the Boston Celtics. As a kid, we'd talk about how the Boston Celtics were the ugliest team in basketball (and they were)...I mean, come on...they had a black man with freckles!
No one liked Bird or the Celtics outside of Boston. Everywhere I went, I never heard a positive word about Bird's Celtics. Mostly from black people. Why didn't we like him? Because for all our black dominance of the NBA, we couldn't stomach the fact the best player in the NBA was a white guy and that he took his white team to the championship on a regular basis.
See, all our heroes in the NBA at that time were flashy players. Players who represented US. Dr. J, Magic Johnson, Dominque Wilkins. There was no way anyone could beat these guys. Except Larry Bird, who dominated them all, lit up the scoreboard in their faces and won championships over ALL of them. Magic Johnson was a great point guard and the ultimate winner of the 80s.
But there was one player who could go toe-to-toe with him and it was Larry Bird. And when those two went at it, even though it was never said, it was always a racial thing. Even if you didn't like the Lakers, you wanted Magic to beat Larry. I mean, come on...the guy's white. You can't let that white boy beat you, Magic. He wasn't just white. He was white and slow. White and awkward. White and ugly. He was ugly, his game was ugly. It didn't flow. It didn't come natural like ours did. He couldn't jump. He had an ugly left handed shot. He wasn't Magic, he wasn't Doc and he wasn't Nique. He wasn't Bernard King. He wasn't Isiah Thomas. He didn't do any of the stuff that the black players did. He just won. The nerve of that guy.
Even after watching Larry Bird go shot-for-shot with Dominique in Atlanta in the playoffs, or watching Larry routinely eliminate the Sixers from the playoffs, we still couldn't admit to ourselves that the best player in the NBA was white. Had Larry's career lasted a few more years, we probably would have justified the belief that the best player in the NBA was black. Maybe. Michael Jordan was coming up just as Bird was going down. Bird was still managing to win, though...even if his back didn't work anymore. Unfortunately for us, Michael never really got the chance to beat the Celtics in the playoffs.
The most hated player and the most hated team in the league were hated because they were both white. It just wasn't right, dammit. Not the fact that they were hated over their skin color...it wasn't right because white players shouldn't be dominating a black sport.
Well, now we should be used to it. We pretty much are used to it, because people love Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk Diggler, we call him. And he comes from a place even whiter than French Lick, Indiana or Boston. Germany. And that place is as white as it gets. And coming along through the college ranks are Duke's J.J. Redick (the most hated player in college athletics) and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison (the heir apparent to Larry Bird).
J.J. Redick is probably the deadliest shooter in the nation and Adam Morrison is the best player in college basketball. They don't get nearly the amount of hostility that Larry Bird seemed to get in the 80s (well, Redick does...but his comes mostly from other white people...and UNC fans). I guess we've finally learned to admit to ourselves that white people can play this game, too.
And now we can admit to ourselves that the best player in the 80s was Larry Bird. Except in Philly. It'll probably never happen there.
If you don't believe Larry Bird was the best (in the 80s), then name me one better. Go ahead. I dare you.
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