Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy witnessed the very first duel between Michael Jordan and Larry Bird in the NBA. The two NBA stars met in a preseason game of the 1984-85 season. Still, their first regular-season match took place on November 15, 1984, when the Boston Celtics visited MJ and the Chicago Bulls.
As expected, the emerging NBA star delivered as advertised. Jordan outscored Bird and logged 27 points in 33 minutes. On the other hand, the Celtics icon didn’t get to find his rhythm and registered just 13 points. However, Bird grabbed 17 rebounds in 31 minutes of action.
Right after that epic game, Bird realized that he had just played against the player who would dominate the game and later be called the GOAT.
“Jordan came to the NBA in 1984 and the first night Larry [Bird] played against him, I knew he [Jordan] was good,” Shaughnessy recalled of what Bird told him on The DA Show. “But Larry said, he told me, ‘That guy is going to be the best player of all time.”
Larry was right about Mike
What Bird predicted about Jordan was unsurprisingly on point. It didn’t take long before MJ took over the game and became the best player in the league.
Three years into his NBA career, Jordan was already an MVP candidate and a scoring champion. The following year, he won his first MVP award and went on to win the it four more times throughout his career. In terms of championships, Jordan never lost in the NBA Finals and won six titles with the Bulls.
MJ’s impressive resume and dominance ultimately made him the GOAT. Even though some fans began to refute it over the years, many are still convinced that no other player could ever exceed Jordan’s greatness.
MJ never said he was better than Bird
Jordan won three NBA championships and six scoring titles throughout the years he and Bird overlapped in the league. Bird, meanwhile, won two MVP honors and one championship during that stretch.
Undeniably, MJ has already surpassed Larry Legend in many categories. However, Jordan once admitted that he could never consider himself better than Bird or Magic Johnson.
“I don’t put myself above them,” Jordan told SLAM in 2013. “I think that we’re all on parallel ground here. You know, they educated me about a lot of things about the game, from a team standpoint. So, I can’t put myself above…I mean, people try to, but we played in different eras.”
“I had an opportunity to go against them in the peak of their careers while I was still young. And I went against them when I was at the peak of mine, when they was on the other end. So, it was a passing of trends there, and we never had the opportunity to play against each other in peak years. You know, so it’s hard to say that I’m above them, by no means. I like to consider myself parallel to them,” the six-time NBA champion explained.
All told, it’s quite interesting to learn that Bird recognized Jordan’s greatness early on. Moreover, his remark declaring MJ the game’s greatest player of all time proves how honest and classy Larry Legend was as a player and a competitor.
In return, Jordan has always respected Bird’s legacy, which is also admirable considering he has been labeled as the only NBA GOAT.