Excerpts From a ESPN Article on Paul Pierce
Since this post was originated, Pierce has gone on to do some even more remarkable things. Here is an excerpt from a Page Two ESPN article on "The Truth";
The Truth comes out
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
I still have the newspaper. In fact, I'm looking at it right now.
It's a yellowed edition of the Boston Globe from May 6, 2005. My father arrived in California that day, travelling cross-country to meet his granddaughter for the first time. He brought the Globe with him. On the front page of the sports section, there's a headline that reads, "Nearly tossed," accompanied by two smaller pictures of Paul Pierce knocking over Indiana's Jamaal Tinsley, and then a larger picture of Pierce frozen in place as Tinsley dropped to the floor.
In the right corner, Shira Springer's game story starts like this: "Ejected from Game 6 last night, Paul Pierce left the floor at Conseco Fieldhouse swinging his green jersey above his head, a gesture certainly intended to taunt the sellout crowd, and allegedly inspire his teammates. It was the final, disgraceful act in a sequence of events that nearly resulted in the Celtics' playoff elimination."
Underneath the pictures, on the bottom half of the page, Bob Ryan's column runs with the headline, "Selfish act could have been team's technical KO." You can practically see the spittle flying out Ryan's mouth as he writes the following words: "... last night we entered a hoop twilight zone in a game that featured the single most unforgivable, untimely, stupid, and flat-out selfish on-court act in the history of the Celtics."
Ten months later, almost to the day, I found that same sports section while cleaning up some clutter in my office. The timing was impeccable: Pierce was in the middle of the greatest hot streak of his career, averaging 34 points a game over a five-week span, even winning individual battles with Kobe, LeBron, Arenas and Iverson. He had broken a Celtics record by scoring 30 points or more in 13 of 14 games; not even Larry Bird ever pulled that off. What stood out was Pierce's unshakable consistency: His game kept thriving even after a 4-for-2 trade and two major injuries, and now he was keeping a depleted Celtics team competitive without overwhelming his teammates and hogging the ball. Even better, he was doing it with a smile on his face and saying all the right things. Even better, he had raised his crunch-time ability to Brady-like proportions.
On Friday, Pierce banked home a 3 to beat the Pacers. On Tuesday, he drilled consecutive 3s in Washington to beat the Wizards (including a buzzer-beater with a degree of difficulty of 9.9). On Wednesday, with the Celtics trailing Philly by four in the final two minutes, he nailed back-to-back 3s for the lead, then made two more free throws to ice the game. After the Philly game, when someone asked him if this was the best win yet, Pierce smiled and said, "Every win is the best win."
For diehard Celtics fans like me, Pierce's career season has been simply astounding to watch on a day-to-day basis -- like having a brooding, underachieving teenaged son who suddenly starts shaking everyone's hand, taking out the garbage, cleaning up his room and bringing home A's. I mean, you hope with these things, you keep your fingers crossed, you keep the faith, but you never actually expect it to happen. Had they traded him last summer to Portland for the No. 3 pick and expiring contracts, I would have been delighted. Now? I wouldn't trade him for anyone in the league other than LeBron and Wade. From the very first exhibition game last October, he's been an absolute joy to watch in every respect. I wouldn't change a single thing about him.
Faced with the potential of the fifth Rebuilding Era in 15 years, stuck with an unlikable nucleus, an overmatched coach and an unhappy superstar that nobody liked, your typical Celtics fan approached this season with the same expression of a whipped boyfriend heading into a chick flick. And then Pierce showed up with a smile on his face, kept saying all the right things, kept giving everything he had. Around December, I started getting e-mails from season-ticket holders who just wanted to tell me, "I don't care that we're blowing close games, it's been worth the money just to watch Pierce every night." When the Internet started buzzing with rumors that he would be traded, Pierce came out and said, unequivocally, that he didn't want to leave, that he wanted to retire as a Celtic. And he kept on killing himself and carrying his team, night after night.
As the trade deadline approached, other teams kept calling and calling, hoping Danny Ainge would be dumb enough to give up Pierce. Well, why would you trade a star player in his prime who wanted to play for you? What kind of message did that send to your fans? Where was the logic in that? Danny kept saying no. When the rumors kept popping up, he finally went on the record and said, "Look, we're not trading Paul Pierce. It's not happening." Pierce would remain a Celtic.
And every Celtic fan breathed a sigh of relief.
For the past five weeks, he's been the best player in the league. Nobody has played at a higher level, nobody has made basketball seem so easy, and nobody has been saddled with a worse supporting cast (not even Kobe). During an improbable 8-4 stretch over the past 12 games, Pierce practically pulled a Jimmy Chitwood playing alongside two veterans with bad knees (Wally Szczerbiak and Raef LaFrentz), two young starters with barely any experience (Delonte West and Ryan Gomes), two fringe youngsters who shouldn't be playing in an NBA nine-man rotation (Tony Allen and Orien Greene), one guy who shouldn't play basketball professionally for a living (Brian Scalabrine), one kid who was in high school last year (Gerald Green), and someone once described as "the human Ebola virus" (Michael Olowokandi). He's also saddled with a coach who has now played the Wizards three times this season without doubling Gilbert Arenas on Washington's final possession of those games, someone who had so much trouble sticking with a nine-man rotation that his general manager proactively sought a 4-for-2 trade to help him out. (Don't get me started.)
What usually happens when an NBA star is stuck in this situation? They pout. They start looking for their own stats. They wonder aloud if their team is truly "committed to winning." After a tough loss, they have an expression that says, "Hey, it wasn't my fault. I didn't ask to play with these crappy guys." Eventually, they push to play somewhere else, and only because they want to be paid like a franchise player without the responsibility of carrying a franchise. That's why McGrady left Orlando. That's why Carter left Toronto. That's why Davis left New Orleans. That's why KG will push to leave Minnesota this summer. The list goes on. In fact, one of the illuminating subplots of LeBron's career has been Cleveland's steady sense of panic about surrounding him with a worthy supporting cast, with the implication being, "We need to get this done, and we need to get this done immediately, or else he might leave for a better team."
But that's been the beautiful thing about Pierce this season: He wants to be a Celtic. He wants to be in Boston when things turn around. He feels like this is his team, for better or worse, that it's his personal responsibility to lead them. For nine straight months, he never said anything otherwise. When they needed him so desperately these last few weeks, he raised his game a notch; now it's reached the point where everyone expects him to come through in close games, where it's surprising when he doesn't come through. You can't attain a higher level as a basketball player.
