Larry Bird is widely regarded as one of the three greatest NBA players to ever lace up their sneakers on basketballs premiere stage alongside Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. He led the Celtics to three NBA championships in the eighties before retiring from the NBA in 1992. In 1996, he was voted to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998.
Bird was born in West Baden Springs, Indiana and his family experienced much financial difficulty during his early years. The Bird family was also embroiled in personal turmoil, which came to a head when his father, Joe Bird, committed suicide in 1975. Bird admits that being poor motivated a great deal. His humble beginnings also earned him the “The Hick From French Lick.”
The most famous of Birds nicknames was Larry Legend, which he earned for his exploits on the court and for having a sixth sense about the game. He possessed an uncanny ability to anticipate and react to the action on the floor. He could see the plays before they actually happened. For this reason, his first NBA coach Bill Fitch nicknamed him Kodak because he form...