Over the course of the last few years, especially, I have been wondering if ever a player would live up to the magic of Larry Bird. When Bird came along in the early eighties, the NBA took off, and the ratings for games did, too. Everything was Bird and Magic for about 5 years. It was a good time for the NBA, but all benefitted from the Bird v. Magic rivalry that developed between the Lakers and the Celtics.
Bird was hard to explain. He wasn't really a pure athlete and, in fact, there was plenty of laughing about his inability to jump. But his story came through loud and clear. Poor kid from French Lick, Indiana, who grew up with nothing to do but work at basketball. He quickly became the working man's addiction to basketball, and the basketball world went crazy for the NBA.
That was the birth of super stardom for me when it came to the NBA. Dr. J had brought the NBA into the prime time, but Bird took it, along with Magic, to the next level.
The rest of the decade and into the nineties was filled with greatness, though. Here is a list of the top 10 greatest players of the eighties with a link to the top 50:
10. George Gervin
9. Robert Parish
8. Adrian Dantley
7. Julius Erving
6. Isiah Thomas
5. Alex English
4. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Magic Johnson
2. Moses Malone
1. Larry Bird
Just someone's impression of the 80s NBA, but not too far off the mark with most basketball fans I believe. And it shows that the NBA really came prime time in that decade. Suddenly modern basketball was with us, and it was everywhere. And modern marketing found these basketball players and made them superstars.
After Bird left the game, following the '91-92 season, much of the air fell out of the game for many fans. Everyone wanted a piece of Jordan, but it wasn't for me. The Jordan fantasy became an addiction with the masses, and it all seemed to spring from some strange compulsion to apologize for something. What I don't know, but it did far less than impress me. It disgusted me. Nonetheless, the NBA was turned over to a state of phoney machine tooled marketing that almost killed the league. I am sure it was true for some others, too, but greatness was stripped from superstardom during the Jordan era.
The NBA still had its players during the decade, and some of today's best players were drafted in the nineties. No knock on those players. It was those players that began the recovery of the league. At the core of the reemergence of the NBA in the late nineties was the arrival of Dirk Nowitzki.
With Dirk and later with Dwyane Wade, there is something of an indescribable allure to a new definition of modern basketball. Nowitzki is from Germany and plays for the German national team in international competition. And he is totally 90s "metro" by just about every standard. How many modern superstars, much less 7 foot tall modern superstars, would drive a mini-Cooper? Well, Dirk drives a mini-Cooper. That's "metro".
But he is so good it brings back reminders of the Bird era of basketball. No way to escape the comparison. Actually, in a perfect world, someday we would get to see Dirk against Bird. Dirk dropping those impossible 20 footers and Bird somehow getting off those contested 10 footers and knocking down those impossible long range 3 pointers. Dirk is the better athlete, but I have few doubts that Bird would find a way to get under the basket and spin his wizardry. A matchup for the ages.
Well, for now, it's move over Bird and Magic. Welcome to the era of Dirk Nowitzki. I have to admit, I will take Dirk and the new breed of players that have formed the core of the NBA in the 2000s...even over those legendary days of Bird, Magic, and the rest. And we can thank our lucky stars we have plenty more to come from these players...
