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Larry Bird, To Bill Simmons: LeBron Is The Best Player In The League, But I’d Rather Play With Kobe

Larry Bird recently sat down with Grantland editor-in-chief Bill Simmons for an episode of Simmons’ B.S. Report podcast. The podcast itself isn’t out yet, but a segment of it has been getting a lot of play on TV this morning. That segment: Bird saying that LeBron James is “by far” the best player in the NBA.

But. And there is a “but”: if Bird could play with any player in the NBA right now, it would be the psychotically competitive Kobe Bryant, since one would assume a Bird-Bryant pairing would lead to more championships than a Bird-Bron pairing (both “Bird-Bryant” and “Bird-Bron” would be fun to say, though). Bird also acknowledges that he’d have to sit Bryant down at some point during their run and tell him not to shoot as much.

And yes, “Larry Bird Telling Kobe Bryant Not To Hog The Ball” is a top-flight hypothetical conversation, one that I assume would contain lots of stare-downs. A clip of Bird’s conversation with Simmons is here: