COMMENTARY : Bird Doesn’t Soar as High as He Used to; and Celtics Languish

OK, so what is the matter with Larry Bird?

His heels are fine. The Boston Celtics are satisfied he has no physical problems. Entering tonight’s game in Milwaukee against the Bucks, Bird is averaging 23.3 points, 10 rebounds and 6.9 assists in 37.7 minutes a game. All but his rebound average are team highs. He is also leading the club in steals and turnovers and is second in blocked shots.

But no one who watches the Celtics with any regularity can be deceived by such numbers. Mr. Evergreen clearly has had a rough re-entry from a year’s idleness, and one cannot help but suspect it’s having a trickledown effect on his teammates.

It might be simplistic to resurrect that timeworn adage, “As Bird Goes, So Go The Celtics,” but that generally was true when a healthy Bird was winning most valuable player awards and the team was collecting the Larry O’Brien Trophy from a champagne-doused Commissioner David Stern with Brent Musburger close at hand to ask the pertinent questions.

Now, both Bird and the Celtics are struggling, providing everyone a glimpse of the flip side to the “As Bird Goes . . . “ theory. It’s a side we haven’t seen--we all assumed last year’s plunge was because of Bird’s foot injuries but one that, in retrospect, is perfectly understandable.

In other words, are the Celtics at the stage where they’re only as good as their struggling superstar? Have they grown so dependent on him--even after a year’s absence--that he carries them down as well as up? The evidence seems to suggest that is the case.

Before he was hurt, there was never a question as to who wore the pants for the Celtics on and off the court. Bird would throw chairs in the locker room if he wasn’t satisfied. He would rip teammates for not setting picks or other perceived transgressions. He felt qualified and obligated to do so. And people listened.

But like a politician who has lost his constituency, or a speaker who has lost his audience, Bird cannot come across as the unflagging, take-charge guy if he isn’t, well, taking charge. Everyone simply assumed he would reaffirm his status as the club’s consummate whip-cracker and everything would naturally flow from there.

“Larry still has the same bearing and demeanor that he always has had,” Boston General Manager Jan Volk says. “He still is a personality and a force off the court.”

But Volk also says: “The biggest part of Larry’s leadership role in the past has been to lead by example. And he’s not there, yet. The effort is there and there is a fine line between very good and great. He has to get back over that line. I think he’d be the first to acknowledge he has a long way to go.”

He does. It’s easy to note he is incapable of playing one-on-one defense against anyone with a modicum of quickness. That’s why Bird speaks forcefully about the need for others to help on defense. He can’t do it alone, which doesn’t exactly make him the most credible spokesman.

It’s also easy to point to Bird’s shooting, which is the most glaring and visible of his weaknesses. There have been far too many Phyllis Diller shooting nights, including the nine for 27 effort against the Lakers Friday.

In nine games this season--or 40% of the time--Bird has shot less than 40% from the field. In his last healthy season, 1987-88, he shot under 40% only 11 times. This season, he is shooting 45.7%, which may be all right for the Washington Bullets’ Jeff Malone but is unacceptable for Bird.

That is one reason behind Boston Coach Jimmy Rodgers’ share the wealth philosophy, which Bird has had trouble accepting. Bird is the foremost proponent of deregulation. The fewer constraints, the better. No constraints is downright Utopian.

Bird always has been given a long leash--some would say no leash--but there was an implicit understanding that such widespread latitude also produced dividends. He would win games. He would exhort teammates. He would make the big play. When others couldn’t, he could.

This season, Bird has done little of the above, which may make him uneasy about assuming any leadership role. And are his teammates any less culpable if they delegated leadership authority to Bird simply because of who he was rather than what he did? Is it fair to ask so much of Bird given everything he went through--and is still going through--when the team and league is changing all around him?

The question of leadership always is a touchy and risky one. There’s nothing worse than having someone try to be what he is not. Or cannot be. But in the past, Bird stepped forward and everyone else got out of the way.

One source close to the Celtics recently suggested Bird no longer is interested in refiring his leadership rockets. The suggestion was that the fire wasn’t there as it once was. All of his good friends from years past--Quinn Buckner, Bill Walton, Artis Gilmore--are gone. And in their places are players he barely knows.

If there was one “given” this season, it was that Bird would fill the leadership void from last year. If he can’t, or won’t, the Celtics will find it hard not to drift aimlessly, which is exactly what they did last season.