Larry Bird is Clint Eastwood: The awesome “f’ing rookie” trash talk story

http://redsarmy.com/2015/02/16/larry-bird-is-clint-eastwood-the-awesome-fing-rookie-trash-talk-story/



Larry Bird is Clint Eastwood: The awesome “f’ing rookie” trash talk story
John - Red's Army (@RedsArmy_John)
Larry Bird is Clint Eastwood: The awesome “f’ing rookie” trash talk story


Every time I hear a new Larry Bird trash talking story, I get excited. I’ve always known he was a big trash talker. When I was a kid, I remember seeing NBA players being asked about this and I remember them always saying Bird was tops. Over the years, there was a slow trickle of stories confirming it. Last week, we got an awesome story from Dominique Wilkins about Bird’s propensity to run his mouth.

But today we got another one. And this one, my friends, does not disappoint. It comes from Jayson Williams, who is telling a story about being an All Star on the East squad coached by Larry Bird. But the story must begin with him being a rookie in Philly (we know how much Bird loved rookies) and chomping at the bit to get a crack at guarding Bird.

I’m going to skip past the parts where Charles Barkley, Armen Gilliam, and Rick Mahorn all fail at covering Bird just so I’m not ripping the whole piece off.  I’m begging you to go read the whole excerpt under the “bleeping rookie” section of the piece. There’s a lot more there. I’m picking up the story at Williams getting his shot at Bird.

“After he destroys Rick Mahorn, he is trotting backward and he looks over at me and at the coach and says, ‘Hey, Coach, put in the f—ing rookie! And I say, ‘Yeah, Coach, put me in!’

An exasperated Jim Lynam finally points to the eager rookie to go in.

“I go right up to Bird, he pump fakes, and I jump, my feet are over his head,” an excited Williams recollects. “I come back down, and he says, ‘Take that, rookie.’ A 3-pointer. I was like, ‘oh s—.’

“We go down next play. I say I am not going to jump [on a ball fake]. Boom! [Bird] raises up, another 3-pointer. He says, ‘Hey, I am shaking you from too far out, huh? You’re a post player? Come take some of this.’

“He did a jump hook on me then did a reverse on me, and then he dunked on me and he had like 14 points,” Williams continues. “So I ran up to him and said, ‘You want to fight, you son of a bitch? You want to fight?’ He just looked at the ref and said, ‘Get this rookie away from me.'”

And according to Williams, that was just the first half. Williams said he had tasted enough of Bird.

Remember, this is all part of a story of him walking into the East locker room as a member of COACH Larry Bird’s East squad. Here’s the payoff:

“I say, ‘Hey, Coach, how are you doing?'” Williams recounts. “And he takes a long pause and goes, ‘Your minutes [plan for the game] are on the refrigerator.'”

After a long pause, Williams says the words Bird said that he will never forget.

“‘You f—ing rookie,'” Williams said Bird told him.

“I said, ‘Holy s—!’ He remembered!” Williams bellows while laughing. “It was like a Clint Eastwood movie the way he said it.”

Larry Bird. The baddest man alive.


bob
MY NOTE:  Larry Bird calls you a "f---g rookie" years later, after ripping you up and making you look bad, and you're honored he remembers you.  Only Larry Legend could pull that off.


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It's a real measure of the respect Bird commanded that opponents tell with delight these stories of how Bird asserted his dominance.

At Bird's retirement Xavier McDaniel told the crowd how once his team was up by one, there was a few seconds left and the Celtics had the ball.  Bird comes out of the timeout and walks up to McDaniel, points to a spot on the floor and says, "That's where I'm shootin' from." McDaniel responded with some choice words of his own. Bird gets the ball, dribbles to that spot and drains the game winner while McDaniel was hanging all over him.

Bird then looks at the clock and sees that there's still 1/10th of a second left and says to McDaniel, "Damn, my timing's off."

I saw that game and was totally unaware of the trashtalking.  Opponents respected Bird I think partly because he was a trashtalker but he didn't try to humiliate his opponent in front of the crowd.  There was no Shawn Kemp style crotch grabbing or flapping and waving his arms up and down on the court.

Michael Cooper said that Bird was real cute.  He'll have the ball and tell Coop how he was going to put it right in his face.  Bird would then fake the shot, pass to McHale, who'd throw in a jump hook, and as they're running back up the court, Bird would smirk and say," Ha, ha, ha, fooled you again."