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The Next Legend
By Mike James
mjsveins@hotmail.com
Toronto
I remember the day I fell in love
with basketball, do you? Was it watching
Michael dunk from the foul line?
Dr. J's windmill reverse layup? Or was it
last year at the All Star game?
If any of these are the reason you watch
every game you can, it is not basketball
you love, it is spectacle. For me
it was watching Larry Bird dive
headfirst into the stands in order to save a
loose ball in the middle of a lopsided
celtics victory over Detroit. There
were no replays of the event.
It was not a poster shot, and he did not even
get a shoe deal out of it.
But, it was the purest display of sport that I
can recall. This is why our
game is changing. I will never stop watching
basketball. I will never stop reading
the publications. I will defend our
game to the very end of my air supply,
but the game is changing. On the eve
of this new season, I long for the
days of old. Who is the next Michael
Jordan - that's not the important
question. It is inconsequential, actually.
Tell me that MJ had Kobe's game
when he was 21 years old. Go ahead.
The real question is who is the
next Larry Bird? Who is the next guy to register
a triple double and nine steals
in three quarters of a game and sit out the fourth as Bird did in
the mid eighties in a lopsided victory. Who will be the next player
to
smash his cheekbone on the floor
and return to the same game to lead his
team to victory? Did you ever
watch the man rebound? It was a textbook
study of determnination and skill.
We don't need a new MJ, folks. Take your
pick: Vince Carter is a highflying
acrobat. Kobe Bryant is the total
package of offense and defence.
Have you ever seen Mike Finley play? But
where is the Bird. Sorry folks
but the next great white guy is not going to
cut it. Bird was not about
skin colour, he was a purist. In white
dominated nineteen eighties Boston,
Bird unforunately heard the moniker
Great White Hope. Go ask Keith
Van Horn if he's heard it before.
Basketball does not need a Great
White Hope. Basketball needs a fundamental
purist with profound skill and the
desire to win. Let's make a point on the
eve of this new season in our new
millenium. Stop asking the MJ question
and start asking the Bird question.
Remeber what really matters to the
game. There will always be
another Vince Carter. Elgin Baylor fades into
Dr. J and he fades into Michael.
Nobody ever played the whole game like
Larry Bird. Period. Let's
start to remember that. If not it won't be long
that players like Bird are a forgotten
smudge on a photo of a windmill dunk.
____________
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