Skip to footer

Larry Bird named NBA Executive of the Year

Larry Bird, once a league MVP and Coach of the Year, has been named the NBA's top executive. The Indiana Pacers have gone through a resurgence this season under Larry Bird.

|
Michael Conroy/AP/File
In this file photo, Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird talks about the NBA basketball team's prospects in the upcoming draft during a news conference in Indianapolis. Bird was voted the NBA's Executive of the Year on Wednesday, May 16, becoming the first person to win that award, plus the MVP and Coach of the Year honors.
  • By Associated Press

| New York

Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird was voted the NBA's Executive of the Year on Wednesday, becoming the first person to win that award, plus the MVP and Coach of the Year honors.

The Pacers went 42-24 and are tied 1-1 with Miami in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Bird's moves to strengthen the team during the offseason included promoting Frank Vogel from interim to head coach and signing starting forward David West.

He acquired point guard George Hill in a draft-night deal with San Antonio, and traded for Lou Amundson and Leandro Barbosa to fortify the bench for the Pacers, who earned the No. 3 seed in the East and had the fifth-best record in the league.

"This is an honor for the Indiana Pacers, not an award for Larry Bird," Bird said in a statement. "Everyone in this franchise put in a lot of work and showed a lot of patience as we have tried to get this team to a level on and off the court the fans in Indiana can be proud of. You always believe, and hope, the players you get will fit into a plan and I'm very proud of what our guys and our coaches have accomplished so far this year."

Bird was a three-time MVP as a Boston Celtics player, then guided his home-state Pacers to a 147-67 record in three seasons and their only finals appearance in 2000. He was the Coach of the Year in 1998 following his first season.

He returned to the Pacers' front office in 2003 and became the full-time president in 2008 after Donnie Walsh left to join the New York Knicks.

Bird received 88 points and 12 first-place votes from a panel of his fellow team executives Wednesday. San Antonio's R.C. Buford was second with 56 points and eight first-place votes, while the Los Angeles Clippers' Neil Olshey finished third with 55 points (six first-place votes).

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Larry Bird named NBA Executive of the Year
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0516/Larry-Bird-named-NBA-Executive-of-the-Year
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe