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Percy Allen / NBA reporter
Bird comes off looking like bigot
By Percy Allen
Seattle Times NBA reporter
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CHICAGO — Larry Bird sat courtside at the Solheim Center on the campus of Moody Bible Institute yesterday watching a collection of prospects who hope to gain entry into the league he once dominated.
Of the 59 players competing at the predraft camp, a handful will have a much more difficult time than the rest achieving their dream of becoming a professional basketball player.
Their limitations have nothing to do with their height, weight or desire and everything to do with the color of their skin.
You see, those players are white and Bird would have you believe that their lack of pigmentation delegates them to a second-class citizenship on the court.
He'd have you believe that Matt Freije, a sweet-shooting forward who played at Vanderbilt, isn't as talented as Missouri's Rickey Paulding simply because of genetics.
And that Brian Boddicker of Texas lacks the proper credentials to compete with Rich Melzer, who played at Wisconsin-River Falls because his ancestry didn't originate in Africa.
In essence, Larry Joe Bird is a bigot.
That would seem to be the most logical conclusion after watching an excerpt of his interview last night with ESPN's Jim Gray in which Bird candidly — to his credit — answered the question of whether the NBA lacks enough white superstars.
"Well, I think so," said Bird, the Indiana Pacers president of basketball operations. "You know when I played, you had me and Kevin (McHale) and some others throughout the league. I think it's good for a fan base because as we all know, the majority of the fans are white America.
"And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited. But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American."
If he had just stopped there, Bird, who had once been dubbed "the Hick from French Lick," might have been guilty only of speaking candidly on a sensitive topic.
"Even now, in this day and age, people are not ready to talk truthfully about race and sports," said Dennis Johnson, a former Sonic, and a former Boston Celtics teammate of Bird. "You've got to have a lot of data to back up what you say, and if you don't, then you put yourself out on a limb."
Of the 408 players who played in the NBA last season, 76.5 percent were black and the infiltration of European players has overtaken American white players.
None of this is news. The league has been headed in this direction shortly after Bird and McHale retired in the early 1990s.
Could the NBA use another Great White Hope? Yes.
But then, it could also use another Yao Ming, Kevin Garnett, and let's throw in Michael Jordan while we're at it. Popular players are popular players no matter if they are Chinese, African-American or white.
I take some exception to Bird's belief that white fans in America only want to root for white players, but if we're honest with ourselves, we know there's some truth to that statement. Now that may not be true for everybody, but for some people it is, and that's just a fact of life.
But Bird didn't stop. The more he spoke, the more he revealed something — feelings that were sinister, depressing and racist from a man who is arguably one of the top five basketball players in NBA history.
Sadly, the words that follow will define Bird's legacy as much as his 12 All-Star appearances, three NBA titles and Hall of Fame induction.
Said Bird: "I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me. I still don't understand why. A white guy would come out, I would ask him, 'What? Do you have a problem with your coach?' And he would say, 'No,' and I'd say, 'Come on. You got a white guy coming out here to guard me. You got no chance.
"And for some reason, that always bothered me when I was playing against a white guy. ... As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me, red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me because it's a disrespect to my game."
Wow. Let those words sink in for a moment.
And if that's not disturbing to you, then listen to Boston president Danny Ainge, when asked if he remembers any kind of racially-motivated chiding from Bird when the two played for the Celtics.
"Just jokingly," he said. "That's just stuff that you sit around and talk about and joke about. I know that Larry has got a good sense of humor. I know that Larry has a dry sense of humor. I could see him joking about things like that, but I know he's not serious about stuff like that."
Maybe it's me, but I'm not laughing, and quite frankly, I just don't get it.
I wish I could say I was the only one, but thankfully, I'm not.
"I was coming over here (to the Solheim Center) with Wally (Walker) and I said to him, 'Man, Larry was kind of hard on us white boys, wasn't he?' " Sonics assistant coach Jack Sikma said. "I guess you can say I was stunned. Shocked, maybe. ... I've known Larry for quite some time, and this is out of character for him."
While ESPN aired the explosive interview, Bird sat almost expressionless during two evening scrimmages at the camp. The NBA informed the media that he wouldn't be granting interviews, which was probably a good thing.
"Larry spoke the truth as he sees it," said M.L. Carr, part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats and a former Bird teammate. "Whether I agree with him or not is not the point. Here's a man who has been in this league a long time, and he's done so much for this league. We should listen to what he has to say."
Now the question is, do we pay attention to Bird or should we ignore him?
Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
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