ESPN’s Baxter Holmes has a great interview with soon-to-be 60 year-old Larry Bird. 60? – My god, I’m f-ing old. Bird shared stories of his shooting form, wrist strength, conditioning and expounded on the tale about his shooting display at a Pacers practice several years ago:
BH: Did you notice them watching you?
LB: No. I didn’t notice until I quit and somebody said, “Why are you quitting?” I said, “Well, why shoot if you’re making all of them?” [Laughs]
It’s the way I worked out, too. I go out in the summers and I’d do everything I had to do before I shot last. If I got out there and I was making everything, I’d go, “Why am I doing this?” So I’d shoot 500 free throws. But the next day, if I come in and I could tell the ball was going a little bit left on me, I could be there for hours, trying to get it back. It’s unbelievable. When I missed consistently, it was always to the right, inside the lip of the basket. That’s because the ball would roll off my crooked [right index] finger out here — [motions to the right] instead of there (motions straight ahead). When it started doing that, my hand was sort of going like that [shows a follow-through that fades to the right] instead of down. It took you forever [to fix it]. It could take me an hour to get it back. So when I went through slumps, when I would miss a shot, it would hit on the inside right and spin out or hit straight back. It never was long. It was always the same miss.
Imagine what might have been if the greatest shooter off all time didn’t have a crooked right index finger?
Bird also touched on his style of play and how it ultimately ended his career:
BH: I talked to Pop [Gregg Popovich] about the art of trying to extend guys’ careers and he told me one of the toughest things was making sure the player is on the same page and is looking at the big picture and not just that night’s game.
LB: One game. My thoughts were always that that night was the most important game in the world. Everybody in the world was watching that one game. And I had to be the best player on the court and win that game that night. That was my mentality and it stuck with me all the way through my career. But, knowing that, I knew that I was going to pay for it in a hard way. That’s probably why, when I retired, after the press conference, I probably felt relief.
Legends never rest.
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