Paul Pierce's Incredible Credentials Show the Truth About His NBA Legacy
The final chapter of Paul Pierce's legendary NBA career might have just closed.
As much as hoop heads should wish that isn't the case, the most important truth about The Truth is that he was, in fact, legendary.
If his story is really finished, the last late-game miracle he supplied could have been the most frustrating—for him and his Washington Wizards. With their season on the line, Pierce was fingertips away from providing a game-tying (and perhaps series/season-saving) three-pointer.
But his clutch corner triple against the Atlanta Hawks, which was initially ruled good, was waved off after a replay review. His release was a split-second late, sending the Wizards home for the summer and casting a cloud of uncertainty over his future.
"Truthfully, what was going through my mind is, I don't have too much of these efforts left, if any," Pierce said after Washington's Game 6 exit, via Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. "These rides throughout the NBA season, throughout the playoffs, are very emotional. They take a lot out of not only your body, but your mind, your spirit."
If Pierce's career has finally come to a close, it's obviously one worth remembering, appreciating and cherishing.
For all the big shots and classic soundbites he provided, statistics feel like a small part of his basketball legacy. Appreciating his game has meant valuing the little things: emotional leadership, unwavering confidence, textbook footwork, fundamental wizardry.
With that being said, the veteran forward still posted some of the finest numbers the league has ever seen.
| Games | 1,250 | 28th |
| Minutes | 44,372 | 17th |
| Field Goals | 8,496 | 27th |
| 3-Point Field Goals | 2,053 | 4th |
| Free Throws | 6,854 | 7th |
| Points | 25,899 | 16th |
| Steals | 1,715 | 20th |
| Win Shares | 149.1 | 21st |
For more context, Pierce has more points than Jerry West, Charles Barkley and Larry Bird; more three-pointers than Jason Kidd, Chauncey Billups and Dirk Nowitzki; a better player efficiency rating than Kevin McHale, Bob Cousy and Steve Nash; and a higher true shooting percentage than Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Julius Erving.
Pierce is a statistical monster, but public perception of him has always lagged behind his production.
He made 10 All-Star appearances in 17 seasons but was never selected as a starter for the world's greatest pickup game. He only cracked the top 10 in MVP voting once (seventh in 2008-09), which seems preposterous now given the level of dominance he reached.
Over a seven-year stretch from 2000-01 through 2006-07, he averaged 24.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.6 steals. During the last five seasons, only two players have matched that stat line in a single campaign: LeBron James (twice) and Russell Westbrook (once).
"Pierce has always been underappreciated," wrote SB Nation's Paul Flannery. "...He wasn't Kobe, LeBron, Timmy, Dirk or any of the other iconic players we know on a first-name basis. As always, he was the Truth. Simple and timeless."
The common thread linking superstars of all sports together is their ability to make other players better. Pierce made a career out of doing exactly that.
In 2001-02, he powered the Boston Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals. He was the key cog of an offense that couldn't scare opponents from any other position. The second-highest scorer on that group, Antoine Walker, shot just 39.4 percent from the field. The No. 3 scorer, Rodney Rogers, put up just 10.7 points per game and started fewer than half of his 866 career games.
Pierce carried that group to three consecutive playoff appearances after that run, including the 2003-04 season when then-coach Jim O'Brien resigned at the 46-game mark. That was one of many transitions Boston would endure over a years-long rebuild, but Pierce held things together as a stabilizing force.
He had to, because there were some pretty lean years in Beantown.
On the court, a youth movement buried Boston in the standings. The Celtics went 57-107 from 2005 to 2007, as Pierce started sharing the scoring load with the likes of Ricky Davis, Wally Szczerbiak and Al Jefferson.
Rather than helping to heal Boston's wounds, Pierce tried to distance himself from them.
"I'm the classic case of a great player on a bad team, and it stinks," Pierce said in 2007 to Jackie MacMullan, then with the Boston Globe.
Pierce encountered far more serious problems outside the lines.
In September 2000, he was brutally beaten and stabbed inside a Boston nightclub. He required lung surgery as a result of the attack.
Amazingly, Pierce played all 82 games of the 2000-01 season.
But maybe that wasn't as incredible as it sounded. Basketball never seemed to give Pierce any problems. He was a 19.5 points-per-game scorer as a sophomore and topped that number in each of his next nine seasons.
Leadership, however, was the bigger challenge he had to overcome.
He clashed at times with teammates and coaches. He made sure anyone who would listen knew that the team's struggles weren't his doing.
But he never quit on his club. Perseverance and maturity eventually lifted the California native to hero status in New England.
"I just had to go home and grow up," Pierce told the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy in 2008. "It was a difficult situation. It was time to grow up, stop pouting, go out there and help these young guys and things will work out."
Things did work out—because Boston swapped out a lot of those young guys for proven commodities.
In 2007-08, Pierce helped the Celtics do the seemingly impossible: manufacture a champion in a single offseason. Boston turned blue-chip prospects like Jefferson, Jeff Green and Gerald Green into All-Stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
Pierce had no problem sharing the stat sheet, spotlight and leadership duties with his new teammates.
And the veterans clicked from the very start.
The Celtics, who sat dead last in the Eastern Conference the previous season with 24 wins, won 29 of their first 32 games. They finished the campaign with a league-best 66 wins—seven more than the second-place Detroit Pistons.
The playoffs provided more of a challenge, and the top-seeded Celtics needed all seven games to win each of their first two series. But they ultimately answered all four of their postseason tests and netted the franchise's 17th world title.
Pierce, making his NBA Finals debut, captured the series' MVP award after bullying the Los Angeles Lakers with 21.8 points, 6.3 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game.
Pierce, at age 37, spent this past season providing invaluable leadership to the up-and-coming Wizards.
"He's a great leader, great mentor," John Wall said, via ESPN.com's Ohm Youngmisuk. "Just seeing his competitive drive and how hard he works, being the first and last guy here, never making excuses, that is something we can use."
"He's a true warrior," Marcin Gortat said, via CSN Washington's J. Michael. "He's a leader. ... It's ridiculous how people follow his lead."
The Wizards, who sent a scare through the top-seeded Hawks before falling in six games, are better now than they were before Pierce's arrival. That's usually been the case for anyone who comes in contact with him—rivals included.
Kobe Bryant, whose Los Angeles Lakers battled Pierce's Celtics in two NBA Finals (2008 and 2010) told Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard that he planned to follow Pierce's blueprint for aging gracefully in this young man's game. LeBron James said Pierce would get "a Cliff note or a couple notes" in his story as a guy "that helped me get over the hump," via Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group.
Pierce was James' postseason roadblock.
Pierce's Celtics bounced James' Cleveland Cavaliers from the 2008 and 2010 playoffs, both in the second round. It was fitting, then, that the first title of James' career (with the Miami Heat in 2012) came after his club sent Pierce and the Celtics packing in a tightly contested, seven-game showdown in the Eastern Conference Finals.
"I knew I had to become much better individually," James said, via Haynes. "He's one of those guys."
Pierce served as one of the league's ultimate doing-more-with-less players. He's neither a track-star sprinter nor a gravity-defying leaper.
But what he lacked in physical ability, he more than compensated for with advanced skills and a genius-level basketball IQ. Those strengths have undoubtedly helped him navigate this last leg of his NBA journey. In 2012-13, he had better per-36-minute production in rebounds (6.8 to 5.9) and assists (5.2 to 3.8) and nearly the same scoring mark (20.0 to 21.0) as his career per-36-minute averages.
Clearly, he can still play. But the question now becomes whether he still wants to.
Pierce has a $5.5 million player option for next season, via Basketball Insiders. But he understands this decision will impact more than himself, via TNT's David Aldridge:
Even if this call was his to make alone, it's hard to tell which direction he's leaning.
"I don't even know if I'm going to play basketball anymore," Pierce said, via Kilgore.
There are so many factors to weigh—notably, the mental and physical demands of another 82-game grind and the time he'd have to spend away from his family—Pierce might need months to figure this out. The sting of Washington's playoff exit surely hasn't worn off yet, and it could be a while before it does.
It's hard for any athlete to know when it's time to call it quits, especially when they know they can still make a positive impact. All that really does is make others think the decision is a lot simpler than it is.
"I think he wants to be back. I don't know, I won't put words in his mouth, but I'd be surprised if he didn't," Wizards coach Randy Wittman said, via Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post.
"It seems impossible that Pierce could be done. Not the way he played this postseason," wrote ESPN.com's Chris Forsberg. "There's simply too much left in the tank to walk away now."
The entire basketball world should be making similar statements. Whenever Pierce walks away, the game won't be the same without him.
He's the rare surefire Hall of Famer who's somehow still underrated. He's long been treated as a good-to-very-good player when his resume reads like one of the all-time greats.
Pierce's legacy is unfortunately one that most fans won't fully appreciate until he's gone. Let's just hope that moment hasn't already passed.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com.
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