Larry Bird, 56, is a former NBA player and coach who is now the Vice President of Indiana Pacers Basketball Operations, has been named the NBA Executive of the Year. He received 88 points and 12 first place votes which lead him to the award. The voting of this award is done by NBA executives throughout the league. For each first place vote the executive is awarded five points, for the second place vote they get three points and for the third place vote they get one point.
The General Manager of San Antonio Spurs R.C. Buford came in second place with 56 points and eight first place votes while General Manager & Vice President of Los Angeles Clipper, Neil Olshey, came in the third place with 55 points.
Bird had joined the Boston Celtics in the 1978 NBA Drift and played for the next thirteen seasons. He had to retire from active play in 1992 because of a chronic back problem. After his retirement he had been employed by the Celtics as a special assistant in the team’s front office from 1992 to 1997. In 1997 he was offered the position of the coach of the Indiana Pacers which he continued for the next three years till 2000. During this period because of his brilliant efforts he led the Pacers to a 58-24 record. During the 1997-98 season he was also awarded the Coach Of The Year Award. In 2003 he came back as the Pacers’ President of Basketball Operations.
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Bird has three MVP awards, three NBA Championship rings and was also named the coach of the year back in 1998. He also played and had won the Gold in the 1978 World Invitational Tournament and the 1992 Barcelona Olympic. He is the first person who has won MVP awards, NBA championship award and the NBA executive of the year award. Frank Layden, Pat Riley and Red Auerbach had won two of these awards the coach of the year and the executive of the year. This is indeed a great achievement for any person.
Behind the Pacers becoming playoff contenders a lot of hard work by Bird has gone into it. His well-planned move during the off season has paid off well. Bird signed up power forward David West and traded for Lou Amundson, Leandro Barbosa and George Hill which helped to get experienced players to the Indiana’s bench. He also signed Head Coach Frank Vogel. All these strategic changes showed results. The Pacers not only finished the 2012 season with the fifth best record in NBA but also the third in the Eastern Conference.
