Larry Bird approached training in a special way in…
As one of the greatest players of all time, Larry Bird is a veritable basketball legend. Throughout his legendary NBA career, Bird accomplished nearly everything a player can achieve both individually and as a member of a team, and he did it with incredible dominance. When Bird entered the NBA in 1979, there was a lot of bias against him because, according to some observers, he is too sluggish and not athletic enough. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for Bird to become well-known and establish himself as a true franchise player.
Bird, though, had to spend many hours honing his skills in private while no one else was around, so his journey to become an NBA great wasn’t quite smooth. Regardless of the sport they compete in, that is the way true champions are formed, and Bird was no exception.
There is an inset in Mark Shaw’s book Larry Legend where Bird discusses his unusual method of practice and the reasons he didn’t play much 3-on-3. Bird knew, even before he entered the NBA, that the greatest ways to be competitive and dominate other players are to practice a lot, understand the principles of the game, and adopt various methods. Bird would spend hours exercising, practicing thousands of shots from every angle on the court.
I practice my rhythm when I’m alone myself in the outdoors. An hour and a half of three-on-three basketball may result in you taking perhaps a hundred shots. At the same time, I can go out and take as many shots as I want, wherever I like.
One reason Bird was so competitive was that he had large brothers who were basketball players. After a while, he recognized that if he couldn’t physically match his brothers, he would need to be smarter than them because they were beating him up a lot. Throughout his whole career, Bird approached the game more like a chess player than a basketball player, constantly staying one or two moves ahead of the opposition.
When Bird was little, he beat his brothers in basketball games by using his excellent basketball IQ and hard work ethic as a strategy. His method for honing his craft and improving as a player remained constant. It got even more intense after he joined the NBA because he was playing against some of the world’s top players instead of his older siblings. He immediately adjusted, and thanks to his brilliance, fierceness, and unmatched basketball acumen, he rose to the top of the world’s best players’ rankings, inspiring dread in many of them whenever they faced Bird.
