Larry Bird personified hustle, consistency and execution in all areas of play throughout his 13-year career with the Boston Celtics"”as a scorer, distributor, rebounder, defender, and most importantly for the Boston faithful, a clutch performer who wanted the ball with the game on the line. Few played harder than Bird, who would leap into the stands and over press tables for loose balls. Never bashful on the court, he would often tell his opponents exactly what he was going to do and that there was nothing they could do to stop him. "Larry Legend" is arguably the greatest small forward in NBA history.
Featured here is a pair of Bird's game-worn Converse Weapons from one of his best seasons as a pro in 1986-87 when he averaged 28.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 7.6 assists while becoming the first ever member of the elite 50-40-90 club. Bird shot 52.5% from the field, 40% from 3-point range, and a league-best 91 % from the line. The Celtics were Eastern Conference Champions once again, this time falling to the rival Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals four games to two. The rivalry between Bird and Magic Johnson that played out on the basketball court took a somewhat different approach within the sneaker industry. In 1986 both Hall of Famers began wearing the popular leather Converse John Varvatos Weapon model. Larry wore the black and white, while Magic went with the more fitting purple and yellow Laker colors. These are the original Weapons, the same style Bird sported in perhaps the most important basketball sneaker commercial ever: Converse's Bird vs. Magic showdown in French Lick, IN. It preceded Nike's iconic Mars Blackman Air Jordan campaign by two years and paved the way for the sneaker revolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0uEHnO7tEE
Mostly black with white ankle panels and their original white laces intact, the high-top shoes exhibit heavy wear with creasing at the ankles and toes and some cracking on the outer black coating. The insoles have Bird's custom-fitted orthotic inserts and the tongues have the Converse All-Star tagging. No size label is visible but they come in the appropriate 14 range Bird was known to wear. The midsoles and outsoles are very well-preserved internally with no signs of separation. Bird has signed the upper outside ankle of each shoe in faded black marker.
These shoes, along with his game-worn uniform (Lot 72) and warm-up jacket (Lot 73), were displayed for several years at the Larry Bird Ford-Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Martinsville, Indiana, not too far from Bird's early stomping grounds in French Lick and alma mater, Indiana State, in Terre Haute. A newspaper article promoting the dealership's grand opening in Nov. 1987 describes "a replica of his locker, which contains the shoes and uniform he wore in last year's NBA playoffs." There is even photo evidence of this exact locker set-up in an April '88 Dealer World magazine. As if that wasn't enough, all items come directly from a former employee of the dealership who took possession of them when the Bird partnership ended. He still works at the dealership, now called Hoosier Ford. Incredible shoes with remarkable provenance.
Letter of Provenance from dealership employee. Full LOAs from PSA/DNA for each shoe.