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He was selected as the sixth overall pick in the 1978 NBA draft but returned to Indiana State for his final season, earning the 1979 College National Player of the Year Award before signing with Boston for a rookie-record $3.25 million for five years. Few questioned the wisdom of entering this uncharted financial territory to secure rights to the collegiate superstar, who delivered the sharpshooting accuracy of an elite guard in the body of a six-foot nine power forward. Perhaps only Bill Russell catalyzed such an immediate positive effect in Celtics history, as Boston improved their win total by thirty-two games over the 1978-79 season in Bird's rookie campaign, claiming the Eastern Conference's first playoff seed with a 61-21 record.

The original owner of this stub was there to see the dawning of a glorious new era in Boston basketball as Bird played his first game in the National Basketball Association, recording the first fourteen of an eventual 21,791 regular season points. Only nine examples appear in the PSA population, so the creasing and the light ink on verso that accounts for the "MK" qualifier must be forgiven in light of the supreme rarity and significance. Certainly one of the toughest NBA tickets of the past half-century. Encapsulated by PSA, Poor 1 (MK).