There has never been a basketball player quite like the Celtics' Larry Joe Bird, in whom talent and tenacity rage a daily wire-to-wire battle for supremacy. Owing to the extraordinary importance of the giant pivotman in the game, it is probably impossible to declare that, in his seventh season, the 6'9", 220-pound Bird, a forward, is greater than Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—that is, the greatest player of all time. Or maybe it isn't.
"Before Bird I used to vacillate," says Bob Cousy, now a Celtics broadcaster. "The question didn't seem relevant. But Bird came along with all the skills, all the things a basketball player has to do. I think he's the greatest." Chimes in Milwaukee Bucks coach Don Nelson, "He's the best player ever to play the game." And there comes this weighty word from Westwood. "I've always considered Oscar Robertson to be the best player in the game," says John Wooden. "Now I'm not so sure that Larry Bird isn't." Even Laker general manager Jerry West, who refuses to compare players from different eras, says of Bird, "He is as nearly perfect as you can get in almost every phase of basketball."
