Larry Bird said that the best player he had ever played with was Dennis Johnson. Johnson seemed to have worn out his welcome with the Seattle SuperSonics and the Phoenix Suns because of his bad attitude. The Boston Celtics had missed the NBA Finals the last two years in a row and needed a guard who was good at defence badly.
Before the 1983-84 season, the Celtics made a deal to get Johnson. Bird said that it was the hardest move he had ever made.
In another great deal of the 1980s, the Boston Celtics got Dennis Johnson.
When Larry Bird joined the Boston Celtics as a rookie for the 1979–80 season, the team quickly became a threat again. He was named Rookie of the Year and led Boston to 61 wins, which was up from 29 the year before.
After losing in the playoffs, the Celtics made one of the most important moves in team history. In the 1980 NBA draught, Boston had the first pick. This pick was sent to the Golden State Warriors along with the No. 13 pick. In return, the Celtics got the third overall pick and the experienced centre Robert Parish. The Celtics chose Kevin McHale with the third pick.
In 1981, Bird, McHale, and Parish beat the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals to win the championship. In the next two years, though, they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers and the Milwaukee Bucks and didn’t do as well. The Celtics had trouble keeping up with guards like Andrew Toney and Sidney Moncrief, so before the 1983-84 season, they tried to fix this problem.
In order to get Johnson, the Celtics sent centre Rick Robey to the Suns as part of a deal. The move was perfect for the Celtics. When Johnson became a starter for the Celtics in 1983, they went to four straight NBA Finals. In 1984, they won the NBA Finals by beating their rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers. In 1986, they won again by beating the Houston Rockets for the second time in the decade.
Bird said that it broke his heart when the Celtics traded for Johnson.
Larry Bird loved that the Celtics were getting Johnson because he knew what they were getting. He just knew Robey much better than anyone else. He called Robey “my best friend in the game.”
Before the 1983-84 season, the Celtics made a lot of changes. They hired K.C. Jones to take the place of coach Bill Fitch. Also, Harry Mangurian sold the team and a new owner took over. None of those moves changed Bird as much as the trade for Johnson.
Bird wrote in his book Drive: The Story of My Life, “The next bombshell was very personal.” “Red Auerbach gave Dennis Johnson to Phoenix in exchange for Rick Robey. I was not upset at all when we moved for Dennis Johnson. I liked the way he talked, and I knew he’d be able to help us. But it made me sad that they gave Rick away.That was the first time anyone close to me had ever been sold. I remembered how much fun we had. At least he was going to Phoenix, which is one of my favourite cities, I thought. He had also always liked that town, which made things easier. I thought that if they wanted him so much that they traded Dennis Johnson for him, he would get a lot of playing time.
“It turns out that what the Celtics were doing was trading my best friend in the game for one of the best players I’ve ever seen.”
The trade that brought Dennis Johnson to the Boston Celtics in 1983 broke Larry Bird’s heart, he said. This story first ran on Sportscasting | Pure Sports.
Read the full story at Sportscasting | Pure Sports.
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