Larry Bird - Legacy

Legacy

Larry, you only told me one lie. You said there will be another Larry Bird. Larry, there will never, ever be another Larry Bird. —Magic Johnson, as quoted at Bird's retirement party.

In 1999, Bird ranked No. 30 in ESPN's SportsCentury's 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th century.

For the 2008 NBA Finals, which featured a rematch of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, Bird appeared in a split-screen advertisement with Magic Johnson (as part of the "There Can Only Be One" campaign which had played throughout the 2008 NBA Playoffs but to that point only featured players from the two teams competing in a given series) discussing the meaning of rivalries.

Bird was widely considered one of Red Auerbach's favorite players. He considered Bird to be the greatest basketball player of all time. Auerbach was so enamored with the player that he drafted him out of Indiana State and waited a year before Bird was eligible to suit up for the Celtics. During his introductory press conference, after Auerbach's contentious negotiations with agent Bob Woolf, Bird announced he "would have played for free." This was after Woolf asked for the most lucrative contract in NBA history, to which Auerbach was quick to point out that Bird had not played a game in the NBA yet.

Bird is the only person to be named an MVP, Coach of the Year, and Executive of the Year in the NBA.