ORLANDO – The biggest question about the blockbuster draft night trade between the Nets and Celtics that delivered Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn is just how much do Pierce and Garnett, who have played a combined 87,000 or so minutes in the league, actually have left to give to their new team.
Count Larry Bird, however, among those who think the trade will work out just fine for the Nets, and for the two aging stars.
“Well, I think it’s hard for me to tell, because they have both played more minutes than I ever played,” said Bird, who met with the media after his Pacers lost 96-75 to the 76ers in summer league action Monday afternoon. “But they’ve both been pretty healthy throughout their careers. They haven’t had the major, major injuries that I have, so I think they have plenty left.
“The way they’ve been coached, and the bench that they have, they’ll pick their spots, but when the time comes, they’ll be there.”
Bird, who took off last season to recuperate both mentally and physically before returning to his old post with the Pacers as team president, knows what it’s like to be part of an aging core, and with questions surrounding the franchise about how it should proceed.
Boston’s first Big Three of Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish all began to break down in the late 80s and early 90s, and questions abounded both then and since about whether legendary Celtics architect Red Auerbach should have broken up that group and traded them when he had the chance in order to rebuild the franchise.
Instead, they all eventually retired as Celtics after winning three championships for the franchise, which eventually fell into a dilapidated state before beginning to rise again, ironically, with the selection of Pierce with the 10th overall pick in the 1998 draft.
“It’s tough,” Bird said of knowing when to break a group that has so much success up. “It’s tough. I knew I was on my way out. Actually, I was gonna leave a couple years earlier, but Dave Gavitt talked me into staying, and it was tough.
“There’s always talk about should Red have traded us earlier, but there is some loyalty there, in that organization, and he decided to keep us.”
For Pierce, the loyalty that went both ways between him and the organization allowed both sides to trust the other would deliver a championship to Boston, which the organization fulfilled by bringing in Garnett and Ray Allen to help him and Pierce did in winning the Finals MVP in 2008 when he led Boston to its long-awaited 17th banner.
“He’s one of the better ones to ever come through there,” Bird said of Pierce’s Celtics career. ”He really is.”
But while the Celtics were loyal enough to deliver Pierce – along with Garnett – to a potential contender, even if it was a division rival, trading him still meant that after everything he’s accomplished in Celtic green, Pierce won’t have the same luxury as Bird and McHale of retiring having only played in Boston.
“You’d love to see that,” Bird said. “I would have loved to see it. I’ve got a lot of respect for Paul, and what he’s accomplished there.
“Yes, I wanted it, but who is to say that he won’t play another four years? So it’s a tough situation.”
Bird went on to say that you “always have to look out for the franchise,” and it’s clear Celtics team president – and Bird’s old teammate – Danny Ainge did just that in acquiring several draft picks for Pierce, Garnett and Doc Rivers, who left to coach the Clippers as the Celtics begin to rebuild their team once again.
But while Bird thinks Ainge knows what he’s doing as a general manager, he couldn’t help but get in a jab at his old teammate.
“Believe me, Danny Ainge knows what he’s doing,” Bird said. “He’s had great success, he’s won a championship, and I never doubt Danny Ainge.
“I only doubted him when he’s had the ball in his hands with three seconds to go,” Bird added with a smile, drawing laughs. “But not in the position he’s in now.”
tbontemps@nypost.com