The Season Is Bird’s, But Day Is Magic’s

Is Larry Bird the best basketball player in the world today?

Sunday he wasn’t. Magic Johnson got the planet’s Player of the Day award, outscoring Bird 37 to 33 and playing for the winning team, the Lakers.

But in Boston, on the East Coast, all around the NBA, and on ships at sea, the talk is that Bird has actually improved his game this season, and he is now truly the best there is.

It’s as if last season’s league MVP trophies--for the season and for the championship series--weren’t good enough for Bird. This season he’s after the Nobel Prize and the Heisman Trophy.

Or maybe an Academy Award for dramatic final shots. Like the one in Boston on Jan. 27 . . . Portland leads the Celtics by one point . . . two seconds remaining . . . Celtics ball . . . time out.

Celtic Coach K.C. Jones starts to diagram a play on his little chalkboard. Bird sticks out a hand and smudges K.C.’s Xs and Os and says, “Just gimme the ball.”

What did K.C. say? What could he say? Bird already had 46 points.

Jones: “I said, ‘OK. Dennis (Johnson), take the ball and give it to Larry.’ ”

Johnson in-bounded the ball to Bird, who was herded like a fugitive into the baseline corner by two Portland defenders. Larry faked. Then, in order:

1. Bird fell back and threw a shot into the Boston Garden rafters. 2. Bird landed out of bounds. 3. The final buzzer buzzed. 4. The shot re-entered the atmosphere and fell through the hoop. 5. Portland Coach Jack Ramsay fell to his knees.

Sunday in the Forum, there were no last-second miracles. In fact, Bird missed the crucial shot of the game, a three-point attempt with 1:45 left and the Celtics down by two.

But Bird did score 33, and with center Robert Parrish out, Bird carried the Celtics on the boards with 15 rebounds.

Nice game. But is he really better than he was last season? In this, his sixth NBA season, has Larry moved up to a new level of play?

His scoring average is up from 24.2 to 27.2, but this cosmic question of degrees of greatness isn’t answered with numbers.

“Oh, yeah,” K.C. Jones said when asked if Bird is indeed playing better this season than last. “He’s arrived.”

Jones makes a gesture with both hands, like a man cupping a lit firecracker.

“It’s like: Boom! He’s arrived.”

Arrived?

“Like Bernard King last season,” Jones said. “What did he do after the All-Star game? Fifty (points), 46, 38, 42 . . . He had arrived .

“It’s like: ‘I’m here . Everything is together .’ It’s just a feeling.”

Bird and Magic, when they’re on, radiate a feeling of total control. The other players seem to blur and fade slightly, and Bird and Magic come into sharp focus, they run and jump under their own personal spotlights.

Bird does everything well, including the little things. Near the end of the game Sunday, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar swung into the lane to try a hook shot, and was fouled by Danny Ainge. The whistle blew, but Kareem continued the shot, hoping for a three-point play.

Bird moved quickly into the lane from the opposite side and hammered Abdul-Jabbar’s arms. This kind of move not only wipes out the possibility of a cheap basket, but tends to numb the arms of the shooter. Kareem missed both free throws.

The notion of greatness didn’t leap into Bird’s consciousness right away in the NBA, or so he claims.

“It took me a couple years to realize,” he said Sunday. “It took awhile to adjust, to understand that you can’t come into the league and take over right away.”

He eased in quietly as a rookie, scoring 21.3 points, re-inventing the game of basketball (or co-re-inventing it, along with Magic), and re-awakening that foam-fanged beast also known as the Celtic fan.

Last season Bird reached a new level. And now . . .

“I’m pretty pleased with the way I’ve been playing,” Bird said Sunday, after some prodding.

His teammates agreed.

“Larry’s the best player in the game today,” said teammate M.L. Carr. “It seems like each year, his confidence has grown. He keeps this up, he’ll have enough confidence to enter the slam-dunk contest.”

This is a joke, folks. The truth is, Larry doesn’t jump real high. Nobody is sure how he is able to get all those rebounds. Something about strength, positioning, hands, desire.

Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy called Bird “the homespun hick with the hungry heart.”

Told of Carr’s remark about entering the All-Star game dunking contest, Bird said, “I did have a dunk out there today, didn’t I? A half-dunk, anyway.”

What is Bird’s vertical-leap measurement?

“Three or four inches, probably,” he said with a straight face.

Carr shook his head.

“The man can’t jump out of the gym,” Carr said, charitably. “He’s not fast. If you lined up all the league’s superstars, and had them race, Larry wouldn’t win. I take that back. Even though he’s the slowest, Larry would find a way to win.”

He almost always does. Sunday he didn’t.

Bird or Magic?

The debate continues.