Sometimes the public never gets to see the best stuff, the things that transform a great athlete into a legend.

No fan was present in the Hellenic College gym on March 6, 1986, for example, when then-Celtics coach K.C. Jones informed the team that if anyone could make a shot from halfcourt -- each player would get one try -- there would be no practice that day. Hardly had the last word drifted out of K.C.'s mouth when Larry Bird grabbed a basketball, ran to the midcourt circle and swished a 50-footer, sending everyone home.

The Larry Bird Commemorative issue of Hoop magazine will be available on newsstands on November 3.

And no fan was present when a writer for the Boston Globe (if memory serves, his initials were B.R.) challenged the Great Man before a game by saying, "Betcha five bucks you can't sink a left-handed three-pointer."

"One out of three?" Bird inquired.

"Hell, one out of tonight," smirked the smarty-pants scribe.

Bird walked into the left corner, adjusted himself behind the line and clanked the first one. Number two -- swish. The scribe handed over the five-dollar bill. Bird put it inside his sock and went back to work.

Or how about this? Back in the late '70s, a beer company ran a promotion at college games. The idea was that both a fan selected randomly from the stands, as well as a local celebrity of sorts, would each be given 25 seconds to make a lay-up, free throw, three-pointer and half-court shot for some kind of prize.

A failed participant (could those initials have been B.R. once again?) informed Bird the following day that the hard part was not getting ahead of yourself by rushing the free throw in order to get to the three-point line.

"Time me," Bird said, assuming his position at the right side of the basket.

Lay-up, good. Free throw, good. Three-pointer, good. Half-court shot -- omigod, is it possible? -- swish. Time? Seventeen seconds.

"And if I were doing it for real," Bird announced, "I'd try to bank the three-pointer, so I could get a long rebound and another chance if I needed it."

It's all true, and he could play a little, too, which is why he is now a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

He is there because his performance over a span of 16 seasons, beginning with his sophomore season at Indiana State and continuing through the 1991-92 NBA season, guarantees his presence on any short list of greatest players who've ever lived. At the very least, it can be said that he was the greatest forward who has ever played the game. And you'll never convince some people that he wasn't the best who ever played, period. He was never about the numbers, although they're pretty good. He liked to say the whole enterprise of him playing basketball was all about championships, and he had three of those. But he somehow managed to transcend just about everything because the things he brought to the game did more than produce victories. They actually stirred the soul. Scoring baskets, grabbing rebounds, making superb passes and preventing opponents from scoring were big things to Larry Bird, but for him there was always more to the game than the obvious.

"Little things," Jones once said. "It was the passion that made him dive over half-court to prevent a backcourt violation, and passion that made him knock heads diving for a loose ball. You'd see him go up for a rebound, and Larry can't jump, right? Then how come he always ended up with the ball? All those little things are what added up to greatness." He was complete. In a physical sense, he took the game as far as his body would let him. He wasn't fast, and he couldn't jump very high, but he took full advantage of being 6-9. His size made the difference between him being as good as anyone, ever, and being, shall we say, a glorified Bill Bradley. Size was an asset, and he used it. Surprising brute strength in such useful places as his hands was an asset, and he used it. Extraordinary peripheral vision was an asset, and he used it.

And smart? As anyone who ever played against him knew, when it came to the goings-on in a basketball game, he was Einstein, Michaelangelo and Henry Kissinger rolled into one. No one has ever had the game figured out better than Larry Bird.

Bird drives past Philadelphia's Bobby Jones during the 1982 Eastern Conference Finals.

Little remembered by the public, but cherished by Bird himself, was the day when everything came together. When people think of Bird's ultimate command performances, they think of Game 4 of the 1984 Finals, when he scored 34 points on 15-for-20 shooting in the 97-degree heat of the non-air conditioned Boston Garden; or Game 7 of the East semifinals against the Knicks that same year, when he ripped the New Yorkers with a memorable triple-double; the 20-point fourth quarter in the great shootout with Dominique Wilkins in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Hawks in 1988; or perhaps the 60-point game against that same Atlanta team in 1985. But if Larry Bird could have one day to live over he would select June 8, 1986, the occasion of Game 6 of the Finals against the Houston Rockets.

The Celtics won their 16th championship that day, and Bird's final numbers -- 29 points, 11 rebounds, 12 assists -- were, by Bird's lofty standards, good, but not phenomenal. What this game demonstrated was that numbers are nothing more than guidelines, or starting points. Numbers cannot define a performance, not when the performer is someone like Larry Bird.

In this game Larry Bird was a microcosm of the game itself. If there was a way to help his team, Larry Bird found it. On offense, he was a command post. You go here. You go there. I'll go where I need to, and I guarantee you something good will happen. On defense, he was astonishingly ubiquitous, reading the minds of the Houston players before they even had a thought. Bird was equivalent to the Allies in possession of Enigma without Germany's knowledge. Larry Bird wasn't supposed to be quick, but somehow he managed to disrupt the entire Houston first-half offense by himself.

He was so in tune with the game's rhythm that he even got a jump ball tip away from Hakeem Olajuwon, who could out-jump him by about two feet. If it weren't lovingly preserved on videotape, no one would ever believe it had happened.

Larry Bird says he was never more mentally or physically prepared for a game than he was that day. It was the day when his vision of how to play basketball exploded in Houston's face.

"My goal has always been control," he explained. "By control, I mean a little bit of everything. Start at the defensive end. Rebound. Dribble the ball up. Hit a three. Get back on defense and help double-team somebody to make him throw the ball away. Come back to the offensive end and make a great pass. Rebound again. Throw a baseball pass for a score. Just one thing after another. That was the only game I thought I was totally prepared for. As far as focus was concerned, there was none better. I should have quit right there."

Most of the Rockets had no idea what had happened to them, but Jim Petersen was an exception. "I saw him take on five men by himself," Petersen marveled. "He's the best. At times, he doesn't even need teammates."

The truth, however, is that what Larry Bird did best was interact with teammates. It's Michael Jordan who doesn't need teammates. It's Michael Jordan who can always get his shot off. It's Michael Jordan who can turn basketball into a solo activity. What always distinguished Larry Bird was the way he blended with teammates.

He liked to say the whole enterprise of him playing basketball was all about championships, and he had three of those. But he somehow managed to transcend just about everything, because the things he brought to the game did more than produce victories. They actually stirred the soul.

It is something of a cliche to suggest that someone "makes other people better." Few actually do. Bill Russell certainly did. Magic Johnson did. And if you're wondering whether or not Larry did, all you'd need do is ask Kevin McHale, Robert Parish or Dennis Johnson, all of whom Bird played off, or allowed them to play off him. Back to K.C. Jones and his "little things" for a moment. Feeding the pivot is a lost art. Bird was a master. When Bird was in the lineup, Kevin McHale knew that the ball would be delivered to him in the low post not only when, but also where, he needed it. The timing was essential, and no one had better timing than Bird, not a six-foot guard, but, rather, a 6-9 forward.

Parish and Bird may very well have formed the most devastating pick-and-roll tandem in history, better even than Karl Malone and John Stockton, if only because Bird was a better offensive threat than Stockton. The reason it worked was not merely technical. It worked so well because Bird radiated such great faith in his teammate. Consider the final minute of the famed Jordan 63-point game against Boston in the 1986 Eastern Conference first-round series. The Celtics were up by two when Bird and Parish executed a pick-and-roll. Parish was left open for a 12-footer; the only problem was that he was 0-for-Sunday from the outside that day. But Bird never hesitated. He fired the ball to his teammate, and the big guy responded by swishing a jumper. The Celtics won 135-131 in double overtime.

"If Robert's open," Bird shrugged, "you've got to give him the ball."

Bird was always about team, as Mike Fratello found out when he coached him in the 1988 All-Star Game at Chicago Stadium. What most people will remember about that game was the 40-point performance by hometown hero Michael Jordan. But when the game was over, the first person Fratello wanted to talk about was Larry Bird, whose statistical contribution to the winning East team's cause had been eight points on 2-for-8 shooting, seven rebounds and one assist in 32 minutes of play.

"The thing that really impressed me was the way Larry Bird subjugated himself," Fratello said. "From the standpoint of a coach, you have to love seeing a man do all he did -- come up with a couple of key steals, get back on defense continually and break up about five fast-break opportunities. To me, he was like an overseer of the game. He saw what we needed and he acted accordingly."

From Bill Fitch to K.C. Jones to Jimmy Rodgers to Chris Ford, his Celtic coaches could all relate. Night after night, for 13 professional seasons, in good health and terrible health and all kinds of questionable health in-between, Larry Bird was the unofficial overseer of countless Boston Celtic basketball games. Some nights he came out firing. Some nights he felt it incumbent to get a particular teammate, or some particular teammates, into the game. Of all the great players from the past 30 years, only his friend Magic Johnson could rival his ability to dominate a game without even taking a shot. He could oversee the game by shooting, by rebounding, by passing or by directing traffic. Numbers meant absolutely nothing to him. Triple-doubles? "They don't mean anything," he once said. "If that's all I wanted to do, I could probably get one every night. But that wouldn't have had anything to do with winning."

What Larry Bird had that cannot be taught or purchased by mail order was a rare athletic presence. He easily accepted the fact that he was born to greatness. He spent one year deferring to veterans, above all Dave Cowens, but in his second year as a professional he began to assert himself. He had seen the NBA, up close and personal. He knew where he belonged. Thereafter, he would, as Fratello would say, act accordingly.

It was a completely natural and unforced act, and it was best summed up by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam. "He worked so hard to get where he was," Halberstam said, "and yet he held on to his inner truths. We live in an age of hype, but in Larry Bird's case, the reverse was true. It took a long time for the hype to catch up with the reality of how good he was."

It really never will. However good you may think Larry Bird was, be assured of this: He was better.

A Boston legend in his own right, Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan has covered the Boston Celtics since the '60s. He worked with Bird on the Hall of Famer's autobiography, Drive.

Reprinted courtesy of Hoop magazine. The Larry Bird Commemorative issue will be available on newsstands on November 3. To order this special issue or to subscribe to Hoop magazine, please call 1-800-769-8843.