On this day in 1992 the Larry Bird era officially comes to an end as Larry Legend announces his retirement after winning a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics as a member of the first (and in my opinion only) Dream Team.
In Boston the number 33 makes you think of just one person - Larry Bird. In the mid 1980's if you asked the average Bostonian about Bird the reply was likely to be, "Larry Bird is a God." Bird was a player whose greatness could not be expressed or understood by simply looking at his numbers. I've heard a number of people compare Dirk Nowitzki to Larry Bird because Nowitzki's points per game and rebounds per game were similar. Just looking at the numbers just doesn't tell the story of how important and how great some players are. As great as Dirk Nowitzki was he just wasn't close to Larry Bird in greatness. Maybe 2 or 3 players in NBA history can legitimately be compared to Larry Legend.
I'm a huge Dirk fan and I agree with you - Bird was better. Top 5 all time, and I'd put Dirk as top 20 all time.
ReplyDeleteBut after numerous years of HD TV, I can't believe we had to watch that low def crap on TV. It makes my head hurt. Geez.
20-years from now people might be saying "Can you believe people used to watch these games in 2-D? How did they follow the action?"
ReplyDelete