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Originally Posted by pgardn
His hands made a better defender than anyone with his lack of speed could possibly have. Remember the people he played with were superior defenders. Hard to look great defending on a team that contained Dennis Johnson, Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale... those were all very good defenders.
And I am from his era. I watched all Birds college games when they finally started televising him (Indiana St. was not a big draw). And I hated his guts because of his mouth.
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I watched Bird plenty of times. That whole "hands" thing was created by the Boston media because Bird was the great white hope and there couldnt be any flaws in this basketball genius.
Bird was a great player, one of the all time greats for sure and no one would argue that. But defensively?
He was a liability. Anyone knows that "hands" can't make you a good defender. You dont defend with your hands, you defend with your feet. He was too slow to guard the other team's 3 and they put cornbread and then later 7 foot kevin mchale on the other team's small forward because Bird would get lit up every time he was on the perimeter.
With the Three point line moved in and the game being much faster today, Bird would be really difficult to hide.