Larry Bird sits on the bench the way he sat on top of the NBA as a player for all those years in the 1980s, calm and confident, hawk-nosed sharp, possessing an aura that never for a minute says anything less than he is the ruler of the nest.
Image is everything.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers are the last two teams standing in the NBA playoffs as much for the way both sets of players have bought into Jackson and Bird as for their ability to dribble and score. It is the reputations the players have embraced, and that says as much about the modern professional athlete as it does coaching ability. So it should be no surprise that what enabled Jackson to turn the Big Aristotle's head was not philosophy but glitter. Namely the six replicas of the championship trophies won in Chicago that were sitting on a shelf in Jackson's Montana home when O'Neal stopped by for a visit last summer. Obviously, he knows what he's talking about.