Former Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce recently compared himself to Miami Heat great Dwyane Wade, which drew the ire of Udonis Haslem, who took Pierce to task.
Paul Pierce explains why he’s better than Dwyane Wade
“Put Shaq on my team, put LeBron and Bosh with me. I’m not going to win one?”
(via #ItIsWhatItIs / h/t @LeBatardShow ) pic.twitter.com/4D3H3oh0vC
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) July 22, 2023
Udonis Haslem calls out Paul Pierce
(h/t @5ReasonsSports ) pic.twitter.com/wmjbH5uFQz
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) July 22, 2023
Pierce was certainly a very good player in his own right. He spent 19 seasons in the NBA, almost all of them with the Celtics, and he was named to the All-Star team 10 times while winning a championship in 2008.
He was not only one of the better scorers in the league, but he was also deadly during crunch time, especially from the free-throw line extended.
But Pierce spent just about all of his prime playing on mediocre and even some bad Boston teams, which may make it hard for some to remember just how good a forward he was.
Once Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived for the 2007-08 season, Pierce’s scoring average dropped considerably, and he poked above the 20-point-per-game mark only once more for the rest of his career.
He, of course, was a rival of the Heat in his later years. Boston and Miami regularly met in the playoffs during that time, which included the memorable 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, which Miami won in seven games after falling behind three games to two.
Wade ended his stellar career with three NBA championships, two of them coming with the help of LeBron James. When he won his first title in 2006, he put together a performance throughout the NBA Finals that eclipsed that of almost anyone in league history, especially considering his clutch heroics in a couple of the contests in that series.
Wade played almost his entire career with the Heat, and he is set to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this year. He is now a minority owner of the Utah Jazz and the host of the game show “The Cube.”
