While ranking the best seasons by position in Celtics history earlier this year, we noticed that our small forward section could have been dedicated almost entirely to Larry Bird. We made a rule to keep that from happening, but we noted at the time that it would be a worthwhile activity to rank Bird’s seasons on their own.
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So we did just that. Here’s where we landed for the 10 best seasons by one of the most iconic Celtics players ever:
1. 1984-85
The year 1985 was transformative. From the success of Live Aid to Gorbachev taking over the USSR, change was everywhere. But the global revolution all started with Larry Bird hitting his prime in his age-28 season and locking into the small forward role. It led to the first-ever 50-40-85 season, as he shot 52.2 percent from the field, 42.7 percent from deep and 88.2 percent from the free-throw line. His per 100 possession averages of 34.3 points, 7.9 assists and 12.6 rebounds have only been eclipsed by Russell Westbrook and Giannis Antetokounmpo, with Luka Doncic on track to match it this season. Not even LeBron James or Michael Jordan ever produced as well-rounded a statistical season as Bird’s metamorphosis year.
So what changed things? It wasn’t like Bird wasn’t great already. He had just won his first MVP and his second title the year before. But it was a fateful injury suffered by Cedric Maxwell in a Feb. 17 loss to the Lakers that altered everything. Bird and Maxwell were constantly juggling the forward roles throughout the game, playing from the block or the elbow. Up to that point of the season, Bird was averaging 27.3 points on 21.3 shots per game. But when Maxwell went down, Bird slid to the small forward spot and Kevin McHale brought the torture chamber to the starting lineup. Bird had a 30-point triple-double the next night and went on to average 31.7 points on 23.4 shots per contest over the final 26 games. He had more control over the ball and offensive flow and his increased minutes next to McHale made it so much more difficult for defenses to load up on him. Bird got to play more from the outside and less on the block, giving him more chances to show why he was the greatest entry passer the league had seen and how unstoppable he was driving baseline.
His playoff performance carried on this high bar, with per 100 possession averages of 30.1 points, 10.5 rebounds and 6.7 assists. That threshold had only been cleared by himself the year before in league history. He ended up with 73 of the 78 first-place votes for MVP, and his 97.8 percent share of the MVP votes was a record at the time. He was just so incredibly dominant that even though the Lakers beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals, this season was Bird’s absolute peak. — Jared Weiss
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2. 1986-87
The Bird era started to crumble during this season, but not all at once. A broken bone in McHale’s right foot slowed down the best season of the power forward’s career. McHale played through it but paid the price later in his career and in his life. Bill Walton, after a charmed first season with the Celtics, only appeared in 10 regular-season games. An experienced roster started to get old quickly. Even if the signs didn’t seem crushing then, they proved to be over time.
The Celtics still reached the finals. Even as the injuries took a toll, they could only be halted by an all-time great Lakers team. Bird failed to win a fourth straight MVP award but would have been worthy of one. He averaged 28.1 points, 9.2 rebounds and a career-high 7.2 assists. He led the NBA in minutes and free-throw percentage. He ranked fourth in the NBA in scoring average. He didn’t just join the 50-40-90 club — he created the damn thing, becoming the first player in NBA history to shoot 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from the 3-point arc and 90 percent from the free-throw line. During the playoffs, Bird averaged 27 points, 10 rebounds and 7.2 assists while leading the NBA in minutes played. The Celtics might have lost to the Bad Boys Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals if he had failed to pull off an absolutely brilliant play. With the Celtics trailing by one in the final seconds of Game 5, Bird stole an inbounds pass and found Dennis Johnson for a game-saving bucket:
In 2006, that play was ranked the fourth greatest playoff moment in NBA history. Bird could not rescue the Celtics against the Lakers in the finals, but the 1986-87 season still counts as one of his best ever. — Jay King
3. 1987-88
The toughest call for my money is placing the 1988 season over Bird’s 1986 title campaign. In 1986, he was the leader of what was generally considered the greatest team ever at the time. Two years later, he recorded his second consecutive 50-40-90 shooting season, another one of many firsts in league history. He reached his peak in catch-all offensive metrics like win shares (11.2 OWS), box plus/minus (7.8 BPM) and Player Efficiency Rating (27.8 PER). He became the first-ever perimeter player to record four straight seasons with at least 0.23 win shares per 48 minutes. This was the tail end of one of the great primes in the history of the game, as surgery to remove bone spurs in both his heels the next season put an abrupt end to his peak.
Though Bird was pummeled by the Bad Boys Pistons in the conference finals, this year and particularly the postseason run featured plenty of his best head-to-head battles. He closed out the regular season with a 44-point, one-turnover tour de force against Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Then there was “The Duel” against Dominique Wilkins, when Bird carried the Celtics in crunchtime to a Game 7 second-round victory after calling the win before the game. Bird scored 20 points in the fourth quarter and threw the game-clinching full-court assist to Danny Ainge. He was getting older, but he still was the greatest when the Celtics needed him. — Weiss
4. 1985-86
The argument for this season: Bird was the best player on one of the greatest basketball teams ever. He was the best passer on a team that made a symphony out of memorable assists. He won the MVP award for the third straight season. Boston won 67 regular-season games, then dismantled the opposition throughout a 15-3 playoff run. Bird didn’t post the most impressive traditional stats of his career, but the Celtics never needed him to go into hero mode. When it mattered, he was as good as ever for the most dominant Celtics team of all time. During the playoffs, he shot 53.8 percent on 2-pointers, 41.1 percent on 3-pointers and 92.7 percent on free throws. Against postseason competition, that’s outrageous. This season also produced the famous “lefty game,” one of Bird’s six 40-point outings during the season.
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The argument against this season: Even on the most talented roster of his career, Bird’s efficiency dipped a bit. He still finished a couple of whiskers shy of the 50-40-90 club during the regular season, but, when evaluating levels of greatness, it matters that his true shooting percentage was the lowest of his peak years. If you’re more into traditional stats, his scoring average dropped by 2.9 points from the 1984-85 season and he failed to average a double-double for the first time in what was then a seven-year career.
Regardless of the stats, Bird steered the Celtics toward lasting greatness. That carries enough weight in this discussion that this season could have been at the top of the list. Instead, we ranked it fourth. Please know I hate myself for my part in this. — King
5. 1983-84
How impressive was Bird’s peak? He won his first MVP during the 1983-84 season — and had not yet reached his absolute prime. At least by our estimation, he was better over each of the following four seasons.
Bird’s 1983-84 season was still memorable. He finished it by averaging 27.4 points, 14 rebounds and 3.6 assists while beating the Lakers in the finals. It was Bird’s lone win over Los Angeles in three finals matchups. If Bird has ever had a better playoff run, it wasn’t by much. He led the NBA in defensive win shares, offensive win shares, overall box plus/minus and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). For those who prefer more traditional stats, he also set a postseason career high by averaging 27.5 points over 23 games, while shooting a sparkling 52.4 percent from the field. That came after a regular season when Bird, not always known for defense, earned All-Defensive second-team honors for the third straight year.
Interestingly, Bird still had not yet leaned into the 3-point shot. Even while launching fewer than one 3-pointer per game, he shot worse than 30 percent from behind the arc for the fourth straight season. It wasn’t until the following year that he started to weaponize the arc, but he never used it nearly as much as perimeter players from the current era. We can still imagine what could’ve been if he had. — King
6. 1982-83
This marked the beginning of Bird’s rise as the league’s best all-around player. His first few years, he was a good scorer, great playmaker and menace on the glass. But in his fourth season, he started to take that next step toward becoming an unrelenting bucket getter, finally cracking the top 10 in total points and leading the league in box plus/minus and VORP for the first time in his career. Bird even scored a then-career-high 53 points and made the second of his three straight All-Defensive second teams.
But the playoffs went poorly that year. Bird caught the flu in the second round against a dangerous Bucks squad and was a shell of himself in the series. Even though he put up 18 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists in Game 4 with the flu still hitting him and a dislocated little finger on his shooting hand, the Bucks managed to close out the sweep. While this was a down moment for Bird, things only looked up from there. — Weiss
Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. (Focus on Sport via Getty Images)
7. 1980-81
After Bird transformed the Celtics as a rookie, the team’s front office pulled off a lopsided trade to give him even more help. Red Auerbach acquired Robert Parish and the draft pick that became Kevin McHale, giving Boston a Hall of Fame frontcourt for the next decade-plus. With the bolstered roster around him, Bird won his first championship in 1981.
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Bird almost captured his first MVP award, too. He ranked in the top 20 in scoring average, assists average, rebounding average and steals average. He made the All-Defensive second team after leading the NBA in defensive win shares. Bird finished a close second behind Julius “Dr. J” Erving in the MVP award voting and was named to the first-team All-NBA.
The Celtics went 62-20 in the regular season, knocked out Erving’s 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals and beat Moses Malone’s Rockets in the NBA Finals. Cedric Maxwell won the finals MVP award, but Bird averaged 21.9 points, 14 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 2.3 steals per game during the playoffs. — King
8. 1981-82
Coming off his first title, Bird was by now an established superstar. Though he made the All-Star team every year he was healthy — 1989, when he played just six games, was the lone trip he missed — this was the only year he won All-Star MVP. Sure, it’s a frivolous award that only recognizes your performance during a single exhibition game. But we’re at the splitting-hairs portion of this list. Bird met the prerequisites for a great season by his standards, as he made both the All-NBA first team and the second team All-Defense while placing second in MVP voting. He leaped from seventh to second in the league in offensive box plus/minus, even though he missed time with a fractured cheekbone and came back eventually as a sixth man for several weeks. Bird really did it all early in his career. — Weiss
9. 1989-90
Bird was past his prime. He was experiencing persistent back issues. His previous season had been wiped out after just six games by bone spurs in his heels. He was 33 years old with a breaking-down body.
He still played 75 games, averaged 39.3 minutes and produced enough to make second-team All-NBA. Bird averaged 24.3 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game — not quite the numbers he posted during his peak, but still rare. Though an aging, diminished Celtics team fell to the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs, Bird averaged 24.4 points, 9.2 rebounds and 8.8 assists over the five-game series. He finished tied for 10th in the MVP award voting.
Though obviously on the downside of his career, he was still a force. — King
10. 1979-80
One of the great rookie seasons ever, it was only eclipsed because his archrival and friend Magic Johnson somehow led the Lakers to the 1980 title in what is by far the greatest debut campaign ever. Johnson and Bird were already household names when they entered the league. Bird fell to the sixth pick in the draft a year before because teams knew he was going to play one last season at Indiana State. Red Auerbach basically said “screw it” and took him anyway, watched the Hick from French Lick rule college basketball, and then turned him into an MVP finalist in his rookie year. Bird finished fourth in MVP voting as a rookie, which is just unfathomable. Bird made first-team All-NBA and won Rookie of the Year to kick off his career. Not too shabby. — Weiss
(Top photo: Dick Raphael / NBAE via Getty Images)
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