What team did Larry Bird coach at the start of the 1997 NBA season?

At the start of the 1997 NBA season, Larry Bird coached the Indiana Pacers. He took over after Larry Brown left the team in 1997, beginning Bird’s first and only NBA head-coaching job.

Bird had already established himself as a Boston Celtics legend, winning three NBA championships and three regular-season MVP awards as a player. His transition to coaching was unusual because he had no prior NBA coaching experience, yet Indiana immediately became one of the league’s strongest teams.

In the 1997–98 season, Bird guided the Pacers to a 58–24 record and won NBA Coach of the Year. The team reached the Eastern Conference Finals, where it pushed Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls to seven games. Bird resigned after the Pacers’ 1999 NBA Finals appearance and later returned to Indiana as an executive.