![]() Erving was already firmly established as an all-time great the next year he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were the only active players selected to the NBA’s 11 man 35th Anniversary All-Time Team. ![]() Larry Bird had an instant impact in 1979-80, winning Rookie of the Year and lifting the Celtics from 29 wins to 61. Erving and Bird actively participated in the creation of the game and as a result the final product incorporated real life aspects of each player’s style. In 1983, Electronic Arts produced Julius Erving-Larry Bird One-on-One, the forerunner of NBA Live and all the other sports video games it would have been unimaginable to choose any other matchup at that time. The Erving-Bird rivalry captured the public's imagination. Erving and Bird frequently guarded each other, while Magic and Bird played different positions and only guarded each other on defensive switches. Magic Johnson versus Bird was a great college showdown for the 1979 NCAA title but after they entered the NBA Johnson and Bird only faced each other twice a year until Bird's Celtics defeated Johnson's Lakers in the 1984 NBA Finals.Įrving's Philadelphia 76ers played Bird's Celtics six times in each regular season and faced off in four Eastern Conference Finals between 19. In the early 1980s the biggest NBA rivalry was Julius Erving-Larry Bird. ![]() A slightly different version of this article was originally published in the June 2004 issue of Basketball Digest. ![]()
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