Larry Bird Gets His Flowers in Sporting News’ All-Time NBA Ranking — And Lakers Fans Won’t Like It
The Sporting News went big with its latest NBA history project, ranking the greatest single-season performances ever by building all-time All-NBA teams. The rules were simple enough: positions mattered, playoff performance counted and no player could appear more than once. That last part is important because otherwise Michael Jordan would probably have taken over the whole thing like it was a mid-90s Bulls documentary.
For Celtics fans, the good news is obvious: Larry Bird made the all-time First Team.
TSN picked Bird’s 1983-84 season as one of the five best individual seasons in NBA history, slotting him next to Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Not a bad little starting five, even if Celtics fans would still find a way to ask why Bill Russell was left off.
Bird’s 1983-84 resume speaks for itself. He averaged 24.2 points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists while winning MVP, Finals MVP, All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive Second Team honors. Most importantly, he led the Celtics past the Lakers in a seven-game NBA Finals, which is always the proper ending to a basketball season.
That season was the beginning of Bird’s three-year MVP run and one of the clearest reminders that his game would play in any era. Shooting, passing, rebounding, trash talk, clutch shot-making — Bird had the full Boston starter pack before “positionless basketball” became a buzzword.
The Lakers reminders make it even better
The ranking also comes with a few extra nuggets Celtics fans can enjoy.
Kobe Bryant’s 2007-08 season made the Second Team, but even that section comes with a green-tinted footnote: the Lakers lost to the Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals. Bryant won MVP that year, but Boston got the parade. That trade-off works just fine.
Magic Johnson also made the Second Team for his 1986-87 season, which included the famous sky hook against the Celtics in the Finals. Yes, Lakers fans can have that one. They bring it up often enough. But if the point of this exercise is history, Boston still gets to counter with Bird’s 1984 Finals masterpiece and, you know, all those banners.
Kevin Garnett also landed on the Second Team for his 2003-04 MVP season with the Timberwolves. It was not a Celtics season, but Boston fans know exactly what that version of KG eventually meant to the franchise. The intensity, the defense, the edge — that was the player who later helped change everything in 2008.
Bill Russell’s omission raises eyebrows
The biggest gripe? Bill Russell missed the cut entirely.
The Sporting News acknowledged that centers were hit hardest, with Russell, Shaquille O’Neal and Nikola Jokic all left off the three teams. Kareem, Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilt Chamberlain were the three centers selected. That is a ridiculous group, but leaving off Russell from any all-time team still feels wrong.
Still, the Celtics are all over the list in one way or another. Bird is properly placed among the sport’s greatest peaks. Kobe’s best season ends with a Celtics Finals win. Magic’s section is annoying, but that is basically the point of Magic.
But the takeaway is simple: the NBA’s all-time conversation still runs through the Celts.
