The junior-eligibility loophole

Bird was a junior at Indiana State in the spring of 1978 when Auerbach gambled the #6 pick on him. Under the NBA rules of the time, a player could declare for the draft after his junior year OR be drafted as a junior and retain college eligibility for one more season — provided he hadn’t signed with an agent. Bird chose to stay at Indiana State for his senior year.

Boston’s rights to Bird ran until June 9, 1979 — exactly one year from the draft. If they couldn’t sign him by then, he’d have re-entered the 1979 draft and another team could have taken him. Auerbach’s bet was that Bird would honor an unsigned commitment to Boston rather than test the market. He was right; Bird signed a five-year, $3.25 million contract on June 8, 1979 — at the time the largest rookie contract in pro sports history.

The 1978-79 senior season at Indiana State

Bird’s senior year may be the most-watched non-NBA basketball season in modern history. Indiana State went 33-0 in the regular season behind Bird’s 28.6 points and 14.9 rebounds. The Sycamores were #1 in the country and reached the 1979 NCAA championship game in Salt Lake City, where they lost 75-64 to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans.

That title game between Bird and Magic Johnson remains the most-watched college basketball game in television history (24.1 Nielsen rating). Their NBA rivalry, which lit up the 1980s, started that night.

What happened to the rest of the 1978 first round

1978’s #1 overall pick was Mychal Thompson (Klay’s father) to Portland. Picks #2-5: Phil Ford (KC Kings), Rick Robey (Indiana), Micheal Ray Richardson (Knicks), Purvis Short (Warriors). Five teams chose ahead of Bird while knowing he wouldn’t be available for another year — most famously Phoenix at #4, who took ill-fated Marty Byrnes.

The rule that allowed Boston to draft Bird as a junior and wait was eliminated by the NBA after 1978. No player has ever been drafted that way again.

Background facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Larry Bird and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records. Lead image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).