Larry Bird
Larry Bird
Larry Joe Birdis an American retired professional basketball player who played for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. Since retiring as a player, he has been a mainstay in the Indiana Pacers organization, currently serving as team president. Drafted into the NBA sixth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1978, Bird started at small forward and power forward for thirteen seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish and forward Kevin McHale...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth7 December 1956
CityWest Baden Springs, IN
CountryUnited States of America
He's got great length and he's one of the best shooters in the league. He gives us another dimension on the outside and hopefully that opens things up in the middle.
I ain't gonna sit here and blame it all on Ronnie, because other things happened, too. But in the pros, when you don't win, people are disappointed. I see it and I'm disappointed, too.
I admire the kid. Not for what he did, but how he's come back and he's worked and he's done things to improve himself. I look for a great year out of him.
He was clearly frustrated. Ronnie thinks if we lose, we would have won the game if he had the ball every time. The offense bogs down at times, but it's still a great offense. He held the ball a lot of times. Nothing frustrated me more than him not rebounding, but I didn't go out in the public and say anything.
I can't guarantee all our guys are going to be here, but the way we've been talking it seems like it will be a one-player-for-one or one-for-two trade. We'd like to keep all of our players.
We weren't really interested in what teams were talking about. We haven't had our team together for two years. I like how we're playing now. We need to get everybody back and look at the product before we make any type of decision on whether we want to do anything this summer.
We would like to get a deal done. We're looking at every option. Teams continue to call us every day, but we're going to do what's right for the franchise and not just do a deal to do one. We want somebody who is going to fit in with this team.
Me and Reggie go way back. I've seen him from him developing as a young player to us retiring his jersey. That's pretty awesome.
We're glad this is over with. We wanted to be patient with this one because Ronnie is a heck of a player and someone's always going to take a chance on someone like that.
Obviously, we're very happy about getting a player of his caliber. He's one of the best shooters in the league and we definitely feel he can come in and help us right away.
There's going to be some changes in the way they play. It's like they're just going through the motions out there at times. We've talked to them and expressed our frustrations, and if it continues to happen, we'll probably have to look in another direction, because one thing we're going to do is put a competitive team out on the court.
Consistency has been one of our biggest problems. I don't see anybody on our team that you can depend on every night to do the same thing. One night they're up, and one night they're down. If you know what you're getting from each player, it's pretty easy as far as coaching. When it's inconsistent, you don't know what you're going to get and it makes it hard to substitute.
The right guy at the right time after Athens and the World Championships, ... This is the type of guy we need. After 2004 we needed a wake up call and we got ours.
There were a lot of doubts. I had an opportunity to play against Reggie. After the first two or three times, there was no doubt they made the right decision.