Larry Bird's rookie card is the 1980-81 Topps panel he shares with Magic Johnson and Julius Erving. A year later, after Rookie of the Year and a championship with Boston in 1981, Topps gave him a card of his own.
The 1981-82 set has a national series of 66 cards and three regional series of 44, and Bird is #4 in the national series, part of a Celtics run that goes Archibald, Bird, Maxwell, Parish. He appears in the set twice more, on a Team Leaders card and in the East regional series.
The photograph is not from a game. Bird stands in a green Celtics warm-up jacket, and a starburst at the lower left reads FORWARD, LARRY BIRD, CELTICS.
Not a game photograph: Bird in his warm-up jacket, the season after his first title.
Boston had drafted him sixth in 1978, while he still had a year of college left. He went back to Indiana State, took the team to the 1979 national final, lost it to Magic Johnson, and arrived in Boston the next fall.
The borders are thin, and centering is the usual problem with this set. It was Topps's last basketball issue until 1992.