Free Bird Watching by Larry Bird, Jackie Macmullan

sixth. Plus, we knew Boston wasn’t going to be that strong in the upcoming season, which meant the draft pick in 1997had a chance of being a very high pick (number three, as it turns out). Even after I said all this, I could sense they were still going to do it. I was flying back to Indiana that day and I remember after the meeting I told Gaston, “I can’t leave town knowing you might make that trade. Tell me you won’t make that deal.” He never gave me an answer.
    Thankfully, they didn’t make the trade, and Boston drafted Antoine Walker with the sixth pick. Walker is a terrific talent, a superstar in the making. I love the way he plays. He passes the ball so well for a big man, and he can rebound the ball. He takes a lot of bad shots, but he’s still very young, and a good coach will get that straightened out. Camby has talent too, but it’s hard to say how good he is, because he’s injured so much. Maybe now that he’s been traded to New York and will be around all those veterans, his game will blossom.
    As it turned out, in the summer of 1997, after Walker’s first season in Boston, Gaston came to me and said they were ready to replace M. L. as head coach. He asked me to put a list together of the names I thought would be good choices. I asked him if he had talked to M. L. about it, and he assured me M. L. understood they needed to go in a different direction, and that M. L. was going to be taken care of, with a different job in the organization.
    I started quietly making up my list. Not long after that, I noticed M. L. was acting a little funny. Something was definitely wrong, so I went in to talk to him, and he was really hot. He started saying to me, “How could you do this behind my back?” He was really mad. He said he had gotten a call from someone in Cleveland who said I had contacted the Cavaliers to see if the Celtics could get permission to talk to their coach, Mike Fratello, about the coaching opening they would have at the end of the season. M. L. said that was how he found out he was going to be replaced.
    The funny thing about that was I never did call Cleveland to ask about Fratello. It’s not because I didn’t think Fratello would be good, it’s just that I knew he was under contract and doing a good job there, and I didn’t expect he’d be available. I was concentrating on finding people who I thought might be ready to move on.
    Anyhow, M. L. was really upset. He said to me, “How could you betray me, after all we’ve been through together?” That’s when I told him, “Listen, you better call up your boss, because Gaston told me you knew all about this. He told me you knew everything. You’re mad at the wrong guy.” I could tell M. L. didn’t believe me, so I closed the door and I called up Gaston in New York and got him on the phone. After a minute or so, Gaston admitted, with both of us listening, that he made a mistake by not telling M. L. He told M. L., “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
    I can understand M. L. being upset, but I wasn’t out to hurt him. I thought he had been told he was being replaced. I think M. L. was feeling I might want the Celtics coaching job, and I was going back-door on him to get it, but I had no interest in doing that. I had already made up my mind I was leaving the Celtics as soon as I finished the coaching search. I just hadn’t told them yet.
    M. L. and I go back a long way. He was one of the best teammates I ever had, but our relationship will never be the same. I hope he understands I was just trying to make the franchise better. I was also following orders.
    M. L. wasn’t the only one upset about the coaching job. Dennis Johnson, who was an assistant coach with Boston and had played with me on the 1984 and 1986 championship teams with the Celtics, was hurt that his name hadn’t appeared on the list of candidates. D. J. and I won a lot of big games together, and I always said he was one of the best clutch players I’ve ever seen. I think D.