The Boston Celtics were not able to pass the eye test when Larry Bird entered the NBA.

The Boston Celtics were not able to pass the eye test when Larry Bird entered the NBA.

When Larry Bird came to play for the Boston Celtics, he had no idea what he was getting into. Bird arrived in the city following some difficult talks that saw him emerge as the highest-paid NBA rookie ever.

He socialized with a few of his new teammates and made an effort to settle into his new surroundings. But as he went onto the court at his first camp, he questioned if he was actually at the proper place.

Larry Bird was able to quickly turn around the Boston Celtics, who were having financial difficulties.

In fact, Larry Bird was selected by the Boston Celtics with the sixth overall choice in the 1978 NBA Draft, while still a junior. Bird’s rights were kept by the Celtics until the 1979 draft because he chose to play his senior year at Indiana State. Red Auerbach and Bird’s agent, Bob Woolf, reached a record-breaking agreement just before the deadline, but negotiations were close to the wire.

Bird took a team with 29 wins in his debut season and made it win 61 games, which was a league-high total. After averaging 21.3 points and 10.4 rebounds per game, Bird was named Rookie of the Year.

Bird and the Celtics won their first of three titles in a decade the following season, thanks to a deal with the Golden State Warriors that changed the team’s fortunes. At 62-20, the Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers shared the league’s best record.

From 1984 to 1986, Bird was the MVP three times in a row. During that time, Boston won its other two championships. In the 1984 NBA Finals, they won seven games against the Lakers. They defeated the Houston Rockets in six games in 1986.

baskets at the camp and questioned his location.
As of today, 37 years ago, only Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell have won MVP three times in their careers, along with Larry Bird.

After finishing in the top three for the following eight years, he finished fourth in the MVP voting as a rookie.

Bird admitted he didn’t know much at all about the Celtics after they drafted him. He spent some time reading up about the franchise and the city before he began his career in Boston. When he got there, he wasn’t so sure he was in the right place.

In his book Drive: The Story of My Life, Bird stated that the Celtics held their yearly rookie camp in Marshfield, Massachusetts, at a location known as Camp Milbrook, during the first week of August. “Red (Auerbach) oversaw the camp in addition to his kid’s camp. He enjoyed nothing more than towing about in a golf cart and supervising the activities.

Red wasn’t exactly a nice host, and Camp Milbrook wasn’t exactly a glamorous place. (Wife) Dinah, a friend of mine, and his wife also came. Red asks, “What’s she doing here?” as he sees Dinah as soon as I enter the office. I declared, “She’s with me.”

Bird then took one look at the hoops.

“I walk outside and look at the baskets, and I see one that I swear is nine-feet-six,” he wrote. “I look at the other one, and it looks like it’s 10-1 or 10-2. Here I am, the Boston Celtics are supposed to have won all these championships, and the baskets aren’t even the right height? What am I doing here?”