NBAs greatest players No 6. Larry Bird

The first 9 years of his career, Larry's teams never had a winning percentage below .683. No one in the NBA during their first nine years ever won more. Compared to Duncan (6-2-1) and Russell (6-3), he beats them both individually and collectively Bird 5, Russell 3, Duncan 1.

Bird      744,756,768,683,756,768, 817,720,695

Duncan 683,740,646,707,707,732,695,720,740

Russell 681,722,787,722,750,725,738,775,675

Basically all of Bird's numbers below were made in his first nine years. If you compare the first nine years of everyone in the NBA - Bird might be number one - But he got injured in his tenth year - however he had three really good  years after that. 

In fact in his last year Bird averaged 20.2 pts/9.6 rbs/ 6.8 assists. - Only Oscar Robertson(4), Russell Westbrook (4), Wilt Chamberlain (2), Nikola Jokic (3) ever topped all three of those stats (Jokic will probably do it this year again) in the history of the NBA.

 

	Finals Record	Conference Finals Record	League MVP	Finals MVP	1st team All-NBA
Larry Bird	3-2	5-3	3	2	9
Wilt Chamberlain	2-4	6-6	4	2	7
Tim Duncan	5-1	6-3	2	3	10
Shaq O'Neal	4-2	6-3	1	3	8
Kobe Bryant	5-2	7-1	1	2	11
Karl Malone	0-3	3-3	2	0	11
Kevin Durant	2-2	4-3	1	2	6
Oscar Robertson	1-1	2-3	1	0	9
John Havlicek	8-0	8-4	0	3*	4
Stephen Curry	4-2	6-0	2	1	4
Hakeem Olajuwon	2-1	3-1	1	2	6
Jerry West	1-8	9-1	0	1	10
Bob Pettit	1-3	4-4	2	1*	10
Julius Erving*	3-3	6-3	4	2	9
Rick Barry*	2-2	4-2	0	1	9
Dirk Nowitzki	1-1	2-1	1	1	4
Kevin Garnett	1-1	2-2	1	0	4
Elgin Baylor	0-7	7-2	0	0	10
Charles Barkley	0-1	1-2	1	0	5
Bob Cousy	6-1	7-3	1	0	10
Moses Malone	1-1	2-2	3	1	4
James Harden	0-1	1-3	1	0	6
Giannis	1-0	1-1	2	1	5
Nikola Jokic	1-0	1-1	2	1	3
John Stockton	0-2	2-3	0	0	2
Allen Iverson	0-1	1-0	1	0	3
Isiah Thomas	2-1	3-2	0	1	3
Steve Nash	0-0	0-4	2	0	3