(2 of 12)
Growing up, Bird was not much aware of the N.B.A., either at seven or 17. He never thought to watch Elgin Baylor perform his legerdemain for the Los Angeles Lakers. When Bird joined the Celtics at 22, six years ago, he knew nothing of Boston Coach Bill Fitch, who had toiled in the league for nine seasons. So no sentimental memory inhibits Bird's self-assessment, just a typically restrained presumption that "people probably tend to forget how good players really were. I'm definitely one of the top ones today, but calling anyone the best ever is too harsh a statement. I put myself in the same category with John Havlicek, someone who works for everything he gets." Not that either MVP denies his ability. "This game is all confidence," Bird says, "and, you know, sometimes it's scary. When I'm at my best, I can do just about anything I want, and no one can stop me. I feel like I'm in total control of everything." The signal for this is when, after shooting, he loops fully around and recoils down the court in triumph before the ball has even reached the basket. "I already know it's all net." His joy is regenerating. "I'll be tired, worn down from travel, or just sad and moody--I consider myself a moody person. But then the ball will go up, and all of a sudden I'm up too. It's wild." Gretzky, reaching that bracing elevation, can actually feel a shift in temperature. "When the play isn't so great, my hands are cold and my feet are freezing. But when it's really good, I can't get enough cold, it's so hot. And then I don't hear anything except the sound of the puck and the stick."
Bird accepts this, his richest statistical season, as the introduction to his prime, "because 28 just sounds about right." That suits Gretzky, who at 24 would fervently like four more years of incline, but he wonders. "When Guy Lafleur retired this season, and I saw he had played only 14 years, I thought, 'Hey, I've played seven already.' Maybe I am halfway through." The first time he and Lafleur ever faced off, it seemed the puck would never drop, and under the tension of the wait, below the clamor of the crowd, he heard Lafleur murmur, "How's it going, Gretz?" Without planning to, Gretzky found himself saying the same thing this year to Star Rookie Mario Lemieux. "How's it going, Mario?"
They never seem to stop going long enough to think about it. From autumn to spring, they crisscross the ice and the court, and the country.
The Celtics are on the road. Of all the caravans in sports, basketball's is the most intimate. Because of their numbers, baseball and football teams are obliged to travel on chartered planes, and customarily fill out the cabins with supernumeraries. But a basketball troupe consists of ten or twelve players, a coach or two, a writer or three, a radio broadcaster and a combination trainer-traveling secretary. They wait with everyone else for undependable commercial departures. Every team's traditional safeguard against a severe fine for missing a game is always to take the first flight out in the morning. So the players are up at 7 each day, bleary vaudevillians pursuing one-night stands.