Having grabbed 7,217 defensive rebounds and 1,757 offensive, Bird has accumulated 8,974 total rebounds during his NBA career. When talking about per game stats, Bird sports an average of 6.8 assists as well as 9.6 boards. This was easy to see when you noticed Bird's basketball stats. 1 in Birds senior year that is, until a Michigan State team featuring a 6-foot-9 guard named Earvin Magic Johnson knocked them off in the 1979 NCAA Championship Game, one of the most widely watched showdowns in basketball history. Larry Bird stats. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. He earned the Rookie of the Year honours and also led a mediocre team . Larry Joe Bird (Larry Legend, The Hick from French Lick, Kodak, The Great White Hope) Born: December 7, 1956 in West Baden, Indiana High School: Springs Valley in French Lick, Indiana College: Indiana State University Hall of Fame: Inducted as Player in 1998 As Player: 897 G, 24.3 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 6.3 APG (Full Record) Larry Bird began his college career at Indiana alongside Bob Knight The avid outdoorsman who also has a passion for country music, auto racing, golf and the St. Louis Cardinals has many interests. . Larry Bird Rookie Year Stats. Birds 19 points in the 1982 NBA All-Star Game, including 12 of the Easts last 15, earned him the games MVP trophy. Larry Bird Biography: Career, Net Worth, Family, Top Stories for the 10 Bird Was A Part Of The Most Watched College Game Ever Larry Bird ranks as one of the all-time top players of the NBA. He was a superstar in college basketball, in essence. Scott Horner. Bird did a fine job in his three seasons on the bench. Mike Hayes, a Kentucky Wesleyan player, recounted the game, vividly remembering Birds bizarre, ungainly swing. NAISMITH AWARDS: Player of the Year | Coach of the Year | Defensive Player of the Year, While Bird was most known for his scoring, he had a well-rounded game that included double-digit rebound totals and unselfish passing. Attended Indiana University for only 24 days. Add the best version of Larry Bird in college, one capable of averaging roughly 30 and 15 at Indiana State, and the Hoosiers might have had another title contender in 1978 if the Hick from French Lick was still in Bloomington. Larry Bird left IU in mid-September of his freshman year, citing too heavy of a course load and his desire to be closer to home. Looks like Bradley's coach on 2/10/79 tried to give Bird the same treatment . I also really believe he can be a heck of a coach. Attendance often reached 1,600 and they were all there to watch the blond-haired shooting whiz with a funny smile named Larry Joe Bird. Imagine Thomas, Bird and Magic on the same team. > Archive 75: Larry Bird| 75 Stories: Larry Bird. OT: Larry Bird College Statistics - RealGM With Bird in the mix, IUs 1978 team wouldve been built around him, Woodson and Radford. Complete NBA coaching record for Larry Bird, including regular season and postseason games. Nicknamed "The Hick from French Lick" and "Larry Legend", Bird is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.He was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998.. This blog is forever grateful for the meme template that sweet, sweet banner gave us. Springs Valley went 19-2 and young Larry became a local celebrity. Join our linker program. Copyright 2000-2023 Sports Reference LLC. Bobby said at this same time he (Knight) made a very huge mistake with having Bird room with an exceptional sophistcated player, with a very vibrant personalitythe complete opposite of Bird ..it was a very bad match-up..and Bird left school even before pre-season practice had started..He hitchiked home.and stayed! We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. No-Trouble Returns upon All orders. Larry Bird Ball was the most popular sport in Terre Haute. FIBA Senior Team Events Stats. The Top 11 Ranked. Larry Bird Comparisons: ( players sorted by last name ) - A-Larry Bird vs Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They both finished their college playing careers in the spring of 1979. An offseason trade with Golden State which that many consider the most lopsided in NBA history brought center Robert Parish and a future first-round pick (which became Kevin McHale) to Boston. Bird recalls in his Book "Drive"--which he wrote late in his playing career-- how he never missed an opportunity to take it to Benson during their NBA days. May 12, 1997: Hired as Head Coach by the Indiana Pacers. Larry Bird was originally in the recruiting class of 1974. ", In Bird's own words, here's the value he placed on ball movement: "My feeling about passing is that it don't matter who's doing the scoring as long as it's us. Larry Bird's accomplishments and stats make him one of the greatest pure shooters of all time. At the time, Bird was a junior at Indiana State University and decided he wanted to play his senior year . College at Indiana State. When the doubleheader was over, hed finished 1-for-2 with two RBIs while recording nine putouts from first base in the second game. Bird was too insecure for the atmosphere there and Magic hated how Knight yelled and screamed and bullied players so he went to Mich State. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Larry Bird and Cedric Maxwell teamed up to oust the Rockets in Game 6 of The Finals in 1981. Player Season Finder . A pioneering sixth man, Kevin McHale won three titles with the Celtics in the 1980s. So it is a moot point. So he cut the ties and went home. And in the 2000 NBA Finals, the Pacers succumbed in a six-game series to the Lakers, led by Shaquille ONeal and Kobe Bryant, for the Lakers first of three consecutive titles. Larry BIRD Biography, Olympic Medals, Records and Age When I started here, I wanted to see the high school, college and professional basketball worlds come together, and Bird symbolizes that. Check out 50 great assists by Larry Bird. Warn noted that Bird played baseball with the same energy he brought to the court: He plays the game just as he does basketball, with every ounce he has. When the Celtics named Rick Pitino as the franchises new president and coach, Bird knew any role for him in Boston would be a limited one. Check out the top highlights and plays from Larry Bird's storied NBA career. * 21+ (19+ CA-ONT) (18+ NH/WY). Larry Bird's baseball career: A lofty .500 batting average Twelve of the top 14 picks in that years draft were seniors, with the other two non-seniors being juniors Kenny Carr and Bernard King, so staying all four years of college was still very much the norm then. Join us for a March Madness Webinar on Tuesday, March 7 at 8pm ET. But even those legendary players didnt fill Boston Garden, wowing fans and dominating games as Bird did. The highlight of Bird's three-year collegiate career came in 1979, when he led the Sycamores to a 33-0 record and their first NCAA Tournament berth in the program's history. IU had three one-possession losses in the 1976-77 season and three defeats by two possessions. Larry Bird Stats: NBA Career Averages by Year - LandOfBasketball.com Published Jan. 28 . Now the Sycamores are 33-0, they are ranked No. Bob Knights worst team at IU, by record, was the 1977, post-title team. Larry Bird averages for the NBA season and Playoffs, including points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and other categories, year by year and career numbers. College: Indiana State. Larry Bird was such a player. Maybe Bird wouldve spent the summer of 1975 celebrating the first of back-to-back national titles at IU, rather than playing for Hancock Construction, a state-champion AAU team sponsored by the mayor of Mitchell, Indiana, which was the only team capable of knocking off the mighty Indiana All-Stars in an exhibition. Bird was raised in French Lick, Indiana, and attended Indiana State University, where he helped revive . Bird nearly doubled the Sycamores' win total year-over-year from 13 to 25 after sitting out just one year in 1975-76, rather than two, after IU signed papers for Bird's release. The Hoosiers beat Furman by one in the first round of the NCAA tournament, before losing by one to Villanova. Before the draft, Larry Bird had just finished his junior year at Indiana State. Layed him out cold. Bird's stats are about as crazy as one would expect one the greatest players of all time to be if they played in a mid-major conference. Even if we dont rewrite Mays season-ending injury in this post, could Larry Bird have gone from being snubbed by the 15-player AP All-State Team one spring to a March Madness hero the next? and even better, he did it mostly because of a dare, Mike Hayes, a Kentucky Wesleyan player, recounted the game. Maybe in ways that we cant totally appreciate, measure or describe, the NCAA tournament might just be five percent less today if Bird never winds up in Terre Haute. Bird missed 22 games in 1990-91 because of a compressed nerve root in his back, a condition that eventually forced his retirement. Despite joking that he hoped he could get the Xs and Os right in the huddle, and that he didnt draw up any plays with himself in them, Bird approached his new role with typical aww-shucks aplomb. Bird won 3 MVP Awards, was selected to play in 12 All-Star Games, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998. Mark Bird's college team, where he became one of the school's best all-time players. On February 6, 1988, Larry Bird won his 3rd consecutive 3-point Contest while still wearing his warm-up jacket. Editors note: This is part of a series of stories revisiting the biggest what-ifs in IU history. Hes very intense. The 16th-leading scorer of all-time in NCAA mens basketball history scored 2,850 points in just three seasons an incredible 30.3 career scoring average after enrolling at Indiana University in the fall of 1974. Celtics Wire. Magic Johnson was in the class of 1977. Neither Birds hometown of French Lick nor West Baden had a daily newspaper at the time, nor was either home to a radio or TV station. He missed the competition, and with each passing year the urge grew to get back into the NBA in a more active capacity. ; School Indiana State University; Born December 7, 1956 in West Baden, IN USA; Biographical Information []. "Larry Bird finishes things," said Dick Ballinger, the varsity head baseball coach at West Vigo High School in West Terre Haute, Indiana during the spring of 1979. With five seconds remaining and the Celtics trailing 107-106, Bird stole an Isiah Thomas inbounds pass and fed Dennis Johnson, whose layup gave Boston the win. He was named NBA Head Coach of the Year in 1998. Indiana womens basketball Q&A: HooplaWyatt on the Big Ten Tournament. Hardly a change of clothes each day. Career information head-to-head including championships won, season and playoff stats, honors and awards and more. Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP. Those would be my first two." When asked if personal statistics matter, he responded: "Yes, it is about numbers. The first inkling to Bobby Knight that things had changed wiht Larry Bird was from a former player who called Knight, and said" he had just seen Bird playing in an outdoor tournment in Lebanon, and he was a "beast" at 6'-9' and around 225#and by that time Bird was al set at Indiana State. Get to know Larry Bird: Stats, records and more - RSN Join us for a March Madness Webinar on Tuesday, March 7 at 8pm ET. He once saw to it that McHale went for 40+ against Benson, ordering the guys to just feed the ball into Mchale every time down the floor. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NCAA or its member institutions. What if Phil Dickens and IU football hadnt gotten the whole dang department sanctioned? The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. 1988 Men's NCAA, 2019 Women's NCAA, 1940 Men's NCAA, 2006 Women's NCAA, 1981 Men's NCAA. By. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Larry Bird Turned a Painful High School Basketball Snub Into Lasting On Aug. 18, 1992 he announced his retirement as a player. . Net Worth, Salary & Earnings of Larry Bird in 2023. He definitely had a softball swing, Hayes recalled. Larry Bird was a co-star of one of the greatest college basketball national championship games ever Bird vs. Magic, when the undefeated Indiana State Sycamores took on the co-Big Ten champion Michigan State Spartans in the 1979 championship. Larry Bird has helped define the way a generation of basketball fans has come to view and appreciate the NBA, said Commissioner David J. Stern when Bird retired due to a painful back condition in 1992, after capturing a gold medal with the original Dream Team at the Olympics in Barcelona. As a senior at Springs Valley High School, Bird averaged nearly 31 points and 21 rebounds per game. forty-five, the most effective larry bird [] But none of those things kept him in Bloomington, as he was gone before homecoming his freshman year. Note: at Spring Valley HS in his senior year., Bird averaged 31 ppg, 21rebounds per game and 4 assists). Larry Bird: Age, net worth, family, wife, children, stats Bird was named the 1978-79 College Player of the Year and left Indiana State as the fifth-highest scorer in NCAA history. Bird didnt let the team down. Finally, Bird enrolled at Indiana State, which had posted 12-14 records in each of the two previous years and where the pressure was not quite the same as at Indiana a perennial Big Ten power and national title contender. Larry Bird once played college baseball as a dare, and he was actually good, The Clippers Russell Westbrook experiment is off to a terrible start. Do you have a sports website? The Celtics won the physical, bitter series in seven games and advanced to the NBA Finals for the fourth consecutive year, meeting the Lakers for the third time. (. IU went 21-8 that season, finishing second in the Big Ten. Knight could only shake his head at what he had lost. Why Larry Bird played college all-star game injured: He promised the All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. 5 ranking than their final record that was just one game above .500, having not cracked the AP poll after December 20. Bird's status as an Indiana sports legend was cemented by the spring of 1979. Larry Bird played in the NCAA tournament just once, in 1979, but he made the most of it. Both Dinah and Larry studied at Indiana State University. The Hoosiers were still very good, winning national titles in 1976 and 1981, and maybe Bird gives the Hoosiers another in 1975 or 1978, making that three chips in a six- or seven-year span. He's an impressive figure with incredible rivalries, but there are still tons of things that younger NBA fans should know about Larry Legend. Could you imagine Bob Knights reaction if, just three years after IU became the most recent undefeated national champion, the Hoosiers lost that distinction to an in-state school (and not even Purdue or Notre Dame, but Indiana State) that was led by an outbound IU transfer? where they fell to the Michigan State Spartans. He averaged 24.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists in 897 regular-season games. If I could, I'd like to play with him forever.". In 1981-82, Bird made the first of his three consecutive appearances on the NBA All-Defensive Second Team even though he was relatively slow and not the greatest one-on-one defender, his anticipation and court sense made him peerless as a team defender. If the answer was yes, then theres a chance there would be national championship banners from 1975 and 1976 hanging inside Assembly Hall right now. His last-second heroics, ranging from seemingly impossible reverse layups to miraculous 35-foot bombs over multiple defenders, never ceased to amaze those who followed his career. Let me be clear, college basketball would look and feel the same if Bird never transferred from IU to ISU, but the 1979 national championship game Bird vs. Magic is still the highest-rated college basketball game of all-time, with a 24.1 rating for a game in which 38 percent of all TVs in the country that were turned on at the time were tuned into Indiana State vs. Michigan State on NBC. Bird has four siblings' all brothers named Mike . That came in spite of Bird playing with a fracture in his left thumb in the Final Four after getting hurt against Arkansas. They both finished their college playing careers in the spring of 1979. OT- How Bobby Knight "lost" Larry Bird To Indiana State! - 247Sports Hoosiers survive Big Ten tournament quarterfinal test. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? Like Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Dave Cowens, the low-key Bird never forced the spotlight upon himself, but rather was a player who brought out the best in the players around him. 1977-78 Indiana State Sycamores Men 's Roster and Stats | College The story behind the 1978 NBA draft, often known as the Larry Bird draft, is one of the most important in league history. Their coach, Bill Hodges, is in his first year, the first rookie ever to take an undefeated team to the tournament final. OT: Larry Bird College Statistics. As of 2023, Larry Bird's net worth is around $80 million; he has different income sources . Call 1-800-GAMBLER. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Bird returned home to become the head coach of the Indiana Pacers in 1997 and led them to the conference finals. The 1979-80 Celtics improved by 32 games to 61-21 and returned to the top of their division. Couldn't have happened. Bird helped rebuild a Celtics franchise that had been suffering from sub-standard play and poor attendance in the late 1970s. Larry Bird's College Career: Overlooked? | News, Scores, Highlights Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Springs Valley in French Lick, Indiana, Hall of Fame: Inducted as Player in 1998 (Full List), As Player: 897 G, 24.3 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 6.3 APG (Full Record), As Executive: IND franchise, 2003-2017 (Full Record). As the 1992-93 NBA season approached, Bird decided he could not continue. Terms at draftkings.com/sportsbook. It determined the balance of power in the NBA throughout the 1980s, arguably the most important era in NBA history, helping to reestablish the Celtics as the best team in the Eastern Conference during this time. The following year was Birds last. He even plays defense, although that's not what's causing the NBA Boston Celtics to salivate over him.". May 16, 2022. He has tallied 1,556 steals, as well as 755 blocks and 5,695 dimes. Despite being 6 feet 9 inches and 206 centimeters tall, he weighs just roughly 220 pounds and 100 kilograms. Bird once again led the team in points (21.2 ppg), rebounds (10.9 rpg), steals (161), and minutes (3,239). Larry Bird | Basketball Wiki | Fandom Anytime you have Bird on the floor, anything can happen, Portlands Clyde Drexler told theBoston Heraldafter the game. Larry Bird Career NBA Coaching Record and Bio - ESPN Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. Thats what a coach has to do.. Bird's Pacers fell in the East finals in '98 and '99, then came up short in the NBA Finals in 2000 against the Los Angeles Lakers. As of today, his net worth is around $75 million. Home-game attendance hovered around 3,100 when Bird arrived at Indiana State, but as he had done in Springs Valley, Bird single-handedly packed the house and elevated his team to respectability and more. He averaged a career-high 29.9 points that year, falling just five points short of averaging 30 per contest. It was interesting to me a I never knew that Larry Bird had signed to play for Indiana, and the story of how he ended up at Indiana Stateinteresting stuff! Even the mild mannered Kareem Abdul Jabbar once decked Benson square in the jaw during a pro game, after being delivered one too mant rib shots by him. Recently crowned national champion N.C. State also joined the pursuit of Bird in mid-April 1974, right before he was slated to sign his National Letter of Intent with the Hoosiers. He averaged better than 30 points and 10 rebounds for the Sycamores during his first campaign. I'm going to assume this is legit because he lists about 20 million sources at the end of it. It is amazing how extreme insecurity can drive a person. Bird poured in 20 points in the final period to outdo his counterpart and lead the Celtics to victory even though he had bronchial pneumonia. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. Boston survived a memorable Eastern Conference finals against Philadelphia in which the Celtics bounced back from a 3-1 deficit and posted come-from-behind victories in each of the last three games, then took the title over Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets in a six-game NBA Finals. Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Saturday, March 4, 4:50AM. "He's a great passer and an excellent rebounder. In regard to per game stats, Bird averages 6.8 assists and 9.6 rebounds. Larry Bird SF #33. Ballinger had proof. The College Jersey Store consists of a significant selection of Indiana State Larry Bird Jerseys, such as Mens, Womens and Kids, swingman, limited, Authentic and throwback jerseys for all, Away Larry Bird Indiana State Jersey at Out Online Retail Outlet 24-7. A crafty defensive player, Birds most famous steal came in Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals against Detroit.
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