Among the best players to ever play in the NBA was Larry Bird. In the 1980s, Bird led the Boston Celtics to three titles and earned three consecutive MVP honors (1984–1986).

During his playing career, Larry was renowned for his deft shooting stroke and exceptional all-around abilities. Perhaps more than his basketball prowess, though, Bird’s legendary status was derived from his extraordinary fortitude and desire to persevere through suffering in order to win.

Bird asserts that various persons have varied pain thresholds. But pain tolerance wasn’t a factor for him. It has to do with engaging in his favorite game.

“Everyone has a different threshold for pain,” Bird remarked in an interview during his last NBA campaign. Some men dislocate their fingers and then proceed to play with them. Some individuals might suffer a six-week absence due to a dislocated finger. I believe that some guys have a higher pain threshold than others; it’s just a matter of something being in your body. However, I was really relieved to have made it to the NBA because I didn’t want a little injury to ruin my season—there were a lot of them.”

Larry persevered in playing despite excruciating agony.
Even though the NBA was physically demanding in the 1980s, Larry Legend was an extremely resilient athlete to start his career. Bird missed just 21 of the 738 regular season games that might have been played in his first nine years in the NBA. At that point, the strain of continuing to play despite those “little” ailments accumulated.

It was determined that the French Lick Hick had excruciating bone spurs on both of his heels. After having them surgically removed, he played just six games in the 1988–89 season. Bird returned to the game for three more seasons, but his back began to affect him after he overcame his Achilles issues.

Larry went under the knife again after the 1990-91 season to remove a disc from his back. But his back problems wouldn’t go away. Bird played through pain one more season before he finally called it a career.

Joe Kleine says Bird sacrificed a lot of pain.
Former NBA bruiser Joe Kleine, who played in Boston from 1989 to 1993, witnessed the final four seasons of Larry’s legendary career. As Kleine saw, Bird had to endure a great amount of pain just to keep the Celtics competitive in their post-championship years.

“I remember we were playing Detroit in the playoffs, and they brought a bike, and I remember sitting there, it was my first year, and I was like, ‘Why the hell are they bringing a bike into the locker room?’ He rode the bike for an hour before the game to get his back loose so he could play the game,” Kleine recalled.

When Bird was on the field, he woulded the Celtics to victory despite playing with a serious back ailment. After playing just 13 NBA seasons and suffering a back injury that caused him to retire in 1992, Larry’s tenacity ultimately caught up with him.