I mean, if we're calling Larry Bird a pedestrian 3pt shooter then wtf are we even doing here. He had 6 seasons shooting over 40%, it would be ridiculous to claim that he's better than Curry, but it's equally ridiculous to over compensate and say that his shooting ability is standard nowadays

It seems pretty obvious that Bird is neither an overrated joke from another era nor a top five player of all time.

His overall skill level was super high for a front court player of his era, and in that respect, he was way ahead of the curve and much more like front court players of today's era.

Please to be finding another post in this entire forum in which I criticized Boston as a city or the Celtics as a franchise.

He was a career 37.6% shooter on 1.9 attempts per game, or 2.4/100 poss.

For a comparison to a modern day shooter, Jared Dudley is a career 39.7% shooter on 2.7/g and 5.6/100 poss.

I don't think anyone is denying Bird was a skilled shooter, or that he wouldn't have shot more in the modern NBA, but that isn't exactly a rare commodity these days. A quick glance at stats shows like 70+ guys did that this year with most of them having 2-6x volume.

Not "otherworldly" is different than "pedestrian. Of course he was a good 3 pt shooter. Not quite as good as, say, Dirk, but in that general vicinity of Dirk, Chuck Person, Michael Finley, etc.

All excellent shooters, but none transcendent by the standards of today's NBA.

if that's how we're evaluating players than there's absolutely no point in discussing anyone who retired more than a couple of years ago. We have to be allowed to use common sense and the tiniest ability to extrapolate from what we know.


you used the word pedestrian directly

Extrapolation itt.

I kind of think of him like Nash where they're legit great, but other things factor into their accolades.

This is well traveled ground with Isiah infamously saying Bird "would just be another good guy" if he were black. That's not totally true, but there's obviously truth in it.

Bird was greatly skilled though like you were saying, that's why the comp to Dirk makes so little sense when passing was such a facet to his game. Which again makes me think of him like Nash even though it's obviously not an apples to apples comp. Bird is prbly better than I assumed defensively but his era obv benefits him there.

Yes. I said "what looks more pedestrian now". Making a relative comparison is different than calling him a "pedestrian" 3 pt shooter, but if my formulation offends you, I'm happy to amend.

I don't consider Bird a "pedestrian" 3 pt shooter. I consider him an excellent 3 pt shooter, but nowhere close to an all time great in that category.

As I said before, I think his overall skill level is perhaps underrated today and his shooting is overrated.

I have bird>dirk pretty easily.

That was mostly just Isaiah being salty. Bird's stats look just fine compared to the best players of his era.

Bird should be considered an elite shooter bc he was elite in his day. the fact that he isn't so elite by today's standards is neither here nor there unless you are debating the time travel scenario I referenced earlier (ie the fact that 1963 Wilt could step into today's NBA and likely be competitive is crazy and fairly unique). could probably say the same for early career Kareem. these guys they had to change the rules for back then - that says a lot.

it's really only fair to compare guys to their contemporaries, otherwise you always end up in place where modern guys are the GOAT's. which at an absolute level is true but isn't very interesting to argue.

wrt to Wilt, I was really arguing that it's a reason why he should be in strong consideration of GOAT.

right. Jordan said Bird was the best forward he played against.

There is more emphasis on defending the 3 point shot now than there was then. There is no reason to believe that guys from different eras would be better 3 point shooters now unless they simply practiced them a lot more (and there was no reason they couldn't practice them more then).

Sure, you shouldn't be judging guys from different eras on volume, but judging them on rate stats seems more than fair since there is no reason it would be harder to make 3s in the past than it is now.

Among players who had meaningful overlap with Bird, I would say that the following arguably were equal to or better 3 pt shooters than Bird:

Dale Ellis
Dell Curry
Reggie Miller
Craig Ehlo
Steve Kerr
Mark Price
Kenny Smith
Byron Scott
Jeff Hornacek
John Stockton
Joe Dumars
Danny Ainge
Chuck Person (maybe slightly worse)

I probably left out a few people. Your casual fan almost certainly assumes that Bird was a better career 3 pt shooter than a guy like Danny Ainge, but it just wasn't true. Ainge had higher volume and a slightly better 3PT% than Bird for his career.

The effective time you have to shoot a 3 is what changed a lot I think between 80s and today

A 80s slow release guy shooting 35/40% would translate worse than someone with a quick release shooting at 30%

Wilt was amazing. I honestly think that the good version of Dwight Howard is the worst case scenario if you put 1963 Wilt into today's NBA.

That's a hot take

You're completely ignoring all sorts of environmental factors. If Steph Curry had been born in 1940 he wouldn't look or perform like current day Steph Curry.

Lol bird haters, the real slappiest of slappies. Funny how the biggest bird haters are all knacktards

I only saw him on the tail end, but where are we getting that Bird was a bad defender? My non-technical assumptions were that he was somewhere between very good to elite at it.

But he won the 3 point shootout wearing his warmups.

His warmups.

🙀

Yeah this seems like one of those so overrated by Simmons types that he's become underrated. Can't see a clear argument for Dirk over Bird. And I love Dirk.

What are the odds that Dwight Howard is Wilt's son?

I mean Wilt did claim to have slept with 20,000 women. Gotta have some progeny out there and with those genetics there would be a decent shot of reaching the NBA for the offspring.

odds are insanely low that he's wilt's offspring.