Paul Pierce Is Once Again Getting Dragged On The Internet All Because He Told The Truth
Mike Ehrmann. Getty Images.A few weeks ago Paul Pierce made some waves when he dug down deep and brought out his hater A game by declaring the Heat wouldn't even win a playoff round after trading for Damian Lillard. It was a true display of true hating never dying and make no mistake, Paul Pierce will always jump at the opportunity to throw shade at the Heat. There's real beef there from his playing days.
As expected, he caught some flack for it. Look, I love Paul Pierce, but even I can't sit here and tell you a Jimmy/Dame/Bam trio is not going to win 4 playoff games. Let's not get too crazy. So when I saw another podcast appearance come across my timeline, I buckled in. I thought to myself, this could be anything. It had started to go viral and I was seeing all these crazy Pierce takes on Twitter so I figured he had to have upped the stakes.
I soon learned, all he did was tell the truth
Let's start with just some simple facts. Paul Pierce is 20th all time in NBA history with 26,397, just narrowly passing fellow Celtics and overall NBA legend John Halvlicek who sits at 26,397. DWade? 37th at 23,165. One guy played 19 years and 1,343 games and the other 16 years and 1,054.
As you can see, early point here for Pierce. He has more points. It's not his fault Wade wasn't available for as long. The best ability is availablity and Pierce found a way. Having said that, when you look at their playoff game totals, 170 for Pierce and 177 for Wade, it's actually Wade who has more points (3,954 vs 3,180). When Pierce talks about how he's more of a 3 level scorer, he's also telling the truth.
In terms of 3PM, Pierce leads that battle 2,143 vs 549. I mean that shit's not even close and Pierce started in an era where you basically were thrown in jail for even attempting a 3PA. Midrange I'd say they were about the same in terms of volume and production. Pierce's elbow jumper helped him be a first ballot HOFer. At the same time, Wade could definitely kill you from the midrange as well. I'd say his biggest advantage over Pierce would clearly be his athleticism and finishing at the rim, but early Pierce could dunk on heads too.
But his biggest point in this whole thing, talking about how if he got to play with LeBron or Shaq he'd have multiple rings too. I'm not sure how debatable a statement that even is. It's also true that if Prime Pierce, Prime KG, and Prime Ray Allen all got to team up 3-4 years earlier, they definitely win multiple. Shit, they almost did it anyway despite playing together post their primes. Prime KG was the MVP of the league I'm not sure if you remember.
So much of how we perceive players has to do with who they were fortunate enough to play next to. Some have more luck than others, and in the NBA timing is pretty much everything. That's what makes winning a title so hard. You need so much to go right. There's a reason super teams exist, and that's sort of why RINGZ culture kind of kills the basketball discourse. The narrative around Pierce as a player would 100% be different if he had Wade's teammates and walked away from the game with a couple of rings. Think of how underappreciated he already is as a first ballot Hall Of Fame player.
Is he better than Wade as a scorer? I think so, but I am about as biased as it gets when it comes to this topic. I guess you could argue the semantics about that part.
But everything else? All I heard was the truth. Fitting, seeing as who said it.
