And in the biggest game of all, the 1979 NCAA title game, he had played poorly, especially by his lofty standards.

There was also a sense of “is Bird really that good?” among the public since he had barely played in any televised games in college. Also working against Bird was that he played for Boston, which had won 13 of the previous 23 NBA titles and had thus developed a large following as well as an even larger opposing group of fan haters. There was a backlash against Bird, who got a big publicity build-up, and exceeded it, amazingly. Drew would shoot 0-4 from the field and score four points with three turnovers and five fouls in just 15 minutes in the 1980 All-Star Game. Proving that cable TV exposure was key in the vote is that Hawk guard Eddie Johnson, a solid but far from great player, was also voted to start at guard for the East. John Drew, a one-dimensional scorer from the Atlanta Hawks, was voted in ahead of Bird - partly because the Hawks played regularly on national cable, a rarity at the time, on Ted Turner’s TBS Superstation. Larry Bird, despite being the runaway Rookie of the Year in 1979-80 and a first team all-league pick, was not even voted as a starter for the All-Star game hosted by the then-Washington Bullets at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.īy comparison, the popular Earvin “Magic” Johnson was voted a starter for the West over more deserving guards such as reigning 1979 Finals MVP Dennis Johnson of champion Seattle and Paul Westphal of Phoenix, who was voted first team All-NBA that season for the third time in four years. But that happened only after underrated Dallas guard Rolando Blackman canned two clutch game-tying free throws at the end of regulation with no time left to force OT. The other time Bird’s East team lost was in 1987 at the Seattle Kingdome, when the East lost an epic overtime game as SuperSonic hometown hero Tom Chambers scored 34 points. It was then with Larry on the bench that the West pulled away to win. The first one he lost in 1985 - at the Indianapolis Hoosierdome in his home state no less - came partly because Bird got elbowed and bloodied, and had to leave the court in the second half. In fact, Bird’s East squad won the first five All-Star Games he played in from 1980 through 1984. When Bird played, the pay was good but not outrageous, and the games were still fiercely contested. With All-Star weekend upon us, let’s look at Larry Bird’s stellar play in the annual mid-season classic - back when it was still a serious competition and not a bad playground game of absolutely no defense and slow motion, “can you top this one-upmanship” by players avoiding almost any expenditure of energy and injury.

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