"That was the ultimate for me" - Larry Bird revealed the greatest achievement of his career

Winning in the most prestigious basketball competition in the world as an old man was the highest point of Larry Bird’s career. Larry Bird has a lot to be proud of as far as his basketball career goes. 

He is a Hall of Famer, three-time NBA champion, 12-time All-Star, and a three-time MVP. However, Bird reckoned that none of those could ever equal the feeling of winning a gold medal for your country on the international stage, knowing that you are already way past your prime. "It was a great experience playing for your country," the Boston Celtics legend told Yahoo Sports in 2008. 

"The Olympics was the ultimate. That was at the end of my career, I knew it was over for me. Being a young kid and being able to watch the Olympics on TV, and watching participants getting their gold medal, and their (country's) song was played, that was the ultimate for me." 

Dream Team Larry was no joke It can be recalled that chronic back pain limited Bird in his final year in the NBA. Still, a hurting “Larry Legend” put up remarkable numbers – 20 points, seven assists, and 9.5 rebounds per game. 

In the Dream Team, Bird didn’t light up the stat sheet, and he didn’t really need to for obvious reasons - 8.4 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 18.8 minutes per game. However, don’t let the numbers fool you, as Bird, at 35 and with a back problem, was still an incredible player, especially when someone talked trash to him. 

Jamal Mashburn, who was one of the college basketball stars that played tune-up games with the Dream Team, could tell. "We ain't thinking nothing of it. The next day we came in, Magic Johnson fed Larry Bird the ball probably about eight times in a row down the court. 

Larry Bird got the ball on Rodney Rogers, and every time he was about to make a move, he told him what he was going to do,” Mashburn once recalled.