Shawn Kemp Remembers Larry Bird Trash Talking Him Before Dropping 40 Points

It’s no secret that Larry Bird was one of the most disrespectful trash talkers in NBA history. Whether he was walking into a locker room filled with 3-Point Contest competitors and telling them to think about who would be coming in second place, or detailing exactly what he planned on doing to his opponent before running the play, Bird had this penchant for speaking things into existence before meeting those expectations.

When he came into the league as a rookie in 1989, Shawn Kemp found out first-hand what Bird was about and shared it on the Knuckleheads podcast with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles. Even though both guys hailed from Indiana, Larry Legend wasn’t going to take it easy on him. In fact, Bird planned going a little harder because he knew a few things about Kemp. 

“I’m from Indiana and Larry’s from Indiana. I knew about the history of Larry but I didn’t realize how he really got down,” Kemp said. “Larry gave me 50 in three quarters. And he talked to me the whole entire game. He asked me at the jump ball, ‘You’re the one that broke all my records in high school right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ And he said, ‘And you’re the one that used to dunk on my brother too right, Andy?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ and he said, ‘I’ve got something for you tonight.'”