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Good player, for sure, but I think he's one of those guys we will have semi-forgotten about in 20 years.
Doubt it. The guy started a new era for the MOST successful franchise in league history. There was the Bill Russell era, the Larry Bird Era and then the Pierce era. He pretty much defined the Celtics for 15 years. No way the guy just gets forgotten.
Don't forget, Pierce played DEFENSE. A lot of people refuse to factor that in but would love a guy that put up more points with a worse fg% and poor defense. *shrug*
EASY HOFer first ballot, I'm sure most of us agree on that point.
As for all-time ranking it's high enough of a number that it's not worth quibbling about if it's 60 or 80 or 100 etc.
I'm not going to put any energy into that discussion because it's so incredibly loose.
There are many role players who can play lock down defense so I think it's natural that teams prioritize offensive superstars. You need that alpha to build around.
Defense is considered cool so fans tend to tunnel vision it I think, that's why you see arguments like Bruce Bowen > Paul Pierce > Melo as in this thread.
Defense does matter, but it's not that hard to find good defensive players to fill the gaps. Much harder to figure out the offense in the playoffs against good teams.
In the playoffs, if you don't have a superteam loaded with a lot of all stars, then good defenses are going to stifle you sometimes and you need that go to player who can make something out of nothing. Having that player is important.
He took his team to the ECF way before he played with Ray Allen and KG so I think he is better than T-Mac. Tracy was the franchise player and never could lead his team to the second round.
I think if the criteria is who lead his team further, then Pierce is the pick. But the way I look at these discussions is pretty much "who I would pick in a draft, assuming their health, development pattern stays the same".
If I'm building a team, I don't know what the rest of my roster will be. Maybe I'll have a garbage roster like TMac's Orlando rosters.
TMac was a considerably better player than Pierce, so despite PP achievement and TMac's shorter career, I think I'd pick TMac.
But I can see an argument there both ways. TMac's downside is health, also that he started to chuck too much in Houston. Although for the latter part, I think some of it is on Yao. Yao wasn't an easy player to play with. Great person, very limited player. If you had Yao, you played slow and spent most of the time trying to put him into a position to get the ball, which was often impossible, and then you had bad possessions and bad last second shots.
I don't blame TMac for playoff failures. Some of it is maybe on him, but his teams Orlando teams were bad and in Houston he and Yao pretty much took turns with injuries.
I wasn't a big fan of TMac when he played, but I now sort of feel sorry for him.
Doubt it. The guy started a new era for the MOST successful franchise in league history. There was the Bill Russell era, the Larry Bird Era and then the Pierce era. He pretty much defined the Celtics for 15 years. No way the guy just gets forgotten.
I think people who had many memorable playoff runs / rivalries tend to stick in collective memory. Say Reggie Miller. He's remembered very well, while many better players who didn't have great playoff moments aren't remembered as much. Pierce falls in the Miller category.
It's a bit ironic though that you didn't mention the Cowens-Havlicek era. It's not you, people just always skip them. It's ironic because it contradicts what I just said about playoffs and memories. Cowens and Havlicek had success and great playoff moments, and their team had the same edgy, almost psycho mentality as the KG/Pierce/Allen Celtics. But they tend to get forgotten.
But on the other hand their victories were 40+ years ago and the 1970s weren't a great time for the NBA.
I think people who had many memorable playoff runs / rivalries tend to stick in collective memory. Say Reggie Miller. He's remembered very well, while many better players who didn't have great playoff moments aren't remembered as much. Pierce falls in the Miller category.
It's a bit ironic though that you didn't mention the Cowens-Havlicek era. It's not you, people just always skip them. It's ironic because it contradicts what I just said about playoffs and memories. Cowens and Havlicek had success and great playoff moments, and their team had the same edgy, almost psycho mentality as the KG/Pierce/Allen Celtics. But they tend to get forgotten.
But on the other hand their victories were 40+ years ago and the 1970s weren't a great time for the NBA.
Havlicek I considered sort of a continuation of Russell's era, but Cowens for sure was someone who was not as memorable for most fans. But it's not because of his performances, he was a solid star who arguably had more individual accolades than Pierce. I think one of the things being missed here (and that you pointed out) on why Pierce isn't forgettable and why Cowens sort of is, is because of the state of the NBA then versus now. To really shine bright back then, you had to be the alpha dog, someone like a Russell or Wilt, or big time personality who got TV time (like Wilt). Cowens was never that type of personality who did commercials for rent-a-car companies or AMEX like Wilt. He was a great player but got pretty much no nationally televised exposure.
How many nationally televised, Christmas special, type games has Paul Pierce played in? How many did Cowens play in? Right now 12 year old fans who never actually saw Paul Pierce play in his prime can go to Youtube right now and see his ECF run with Walker. Can you do the same for Cowens career? We both know the answer to that.
Paul Pierce won't be forgotten because he shined in an era where all of his individual accomplishments had so much exposure and coverage. Same for Larry Bird. Bird and Magic basically brought the Prime Time TV era to the NBA. 12-13 million people saw Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant battle each other in the 2010 NBA Finals. How many people saw Cowens and crew come up short against the Knicks? Maybe 500,000?
That's the difference right there on why I don't think Pierce will be forgotten as easily as other's here have stated.
There are many role players who can play lock down defense so I think it's natural that teams prioritize offensive superstars. You need that alpha to build around.
Defense is considered cool so fans tend to tunnel vision it I think, that's why you see arguments like Bruce Bowen > Paul Pierce > Melo as in this thread.
Defense does matter, but it's not that hard to find good defensive players to fill the gaps. Much harder to figure out the offense in the playoffs against good teams.
In the playoffs, if you don't have a superteam loaded with a lot of all stars, then good defenses are going to stifle you sometimes and you need that go to player who can make something out of nothing. Having that player is important.
Um, Pierce scored 27ppg one season.
He scored as well as Melo imo...just took a lot less shots.
LMAO, defense is considered cool? The ESPN glory goes to the guy that had 40 points even if it took him 30 shots to get there.
My point is that Pierce gave you everything very well.
It's not football. Your offensive player has to go play defense too.
Case in point Steve Nash. Tony Parker used to absolutely annihilate him in the playoffs and the Spurs fed him the ball to abuse the weak spot.
I think if the criteria is who lead his team further, then Pierce is the pick. But the way I look at these discussions is pretty much "who I would pick in a draft, assuming their health, development pattern stays the same".
If I'm building a team, I don't know what the rest of my roster will be. Maybe I'll have a garbage roster like TMac's Orlando rosters.
TMac was a considerably better player than Pierce, so despite PP achievement and TMac's shorter career, I think I'd pick TMac.
But I can see an argument there both ways. TMac's downside is health, also that he started to chuck too much in Houston. Although for the latter part, I think some of it is on Yao. Yao wasn't an easy player to play with. Great person, very limited player. If you had Yao, you played slow and spent most of the time trying to put him into a position to get the ball, which was often impossible, and then you had bad possessions and bad last second shots.
I don't blame TMac for playoff failures. Some of it is maybe on him, but his teams Orlando teams were bad and in Houston he and Yao pretty much took turns with injuries.
I wasn't a big fan of TMac when he played, but I now sort of feel sorry for him.
I'd agree that Tmac at his peak was the better player. Injuries suck.
Um, Pierce scored 27ppg one season.
He scored as well as Melo imo...just took a lot less shots.
LMAO, defense is considered cool? The ESPN glory goes to the guy that had 40 points even if it took him 30 shots to get there.
My point is that Pierce gave you everything very well.
It's not football. Your offensive player has to go play defense too.
Case in point Steve Nash. Tony Parker used to absolutely annihilate him in the playoffs and the Spurs fed him the ball to abuse the weak spot.
I don't know about ESPN but many fans fetish defense. Maybe it's because they want to seem cool and un-ESPN, I don't know. But failure by defensive players is often tolerated more, while it's easy for somebody like Dirk to get labeled a choker.
That's my opinion based on conversations with fans. As I'm from Europe, I don't have American TV highlight shows, NBA talk shows and such.
I would say that Melo is a more skilled and better offensive player. Although one great thing about PP is that he always played huge minutes. He was durable, mostly healthy and had high stamina. That's an argument I could see over Carmelo.
If you look at per possession scoring, it's clear that Melo consistently carried more of his team's offense than Pierce. Their efficiency difference isn't huge, neither was a super efficient player and Pierce was very up and down in that regard. Pierce certainly was no James Harden or Durant.
I think today it's the fashionable thing to bash Melo, because he missed all those playoffs on terrible teams.
But to me, to this day the defining Carmelo moment was 2009. He was fantastic in the playoffs. They kept it close in most games vs. the Lakers, and that series could've gone both ways. Melo went pretty close to pulling a Dirk that year. That's what I remember most about Melo's career, and nothing can take it from him, in my eyes. Pierce that year was asked to lead the Celtics without KG but they couldn't get past the Magic - Pierce himself was pretty miserable vs. them, and the Magic then went on to be trashed by the Lakers.
At that moment in time, if I asked anyone who was a better player of these two, people would have seen me as an idiot, there was no debate. Obviously, Melo made a mistake joining the Knicks and Pierce overall achieved more with his team.
Pierce that year was asked to lead the Celtics without KG but they couldn't get past the Magic - Pierce himself was pretty miserable vs. them,
Can you really blame that ALL on Pierce?
Without KG all they had was Perkins and Big Baby down low to contain Dwight Howard. I actually watched that series and remember how Howard feasted down low against slow, immobile, limited Perkins, and slow, short, fat, Big Baby Davis. Howard averaged over 17 rebounds a game in that series, the MOST of any series he played in during the 2009 playoffs. Not only that, because the Celtics had no big that could stretch the floor since Perkins and Big Baby were not the shooters that KG was, the defensive schemes were much easier for the magic and it showed. Both Ray Allen and Paul Pierce had a low scoring series due to the extra defensive pressure.
Not sure I buy the logic of using the 2009 ECSF against Pierce given his teams structural disadvantages once KG was gone, while at the same time praising Melo for his performance against the Lakers in the WCF where he had all the pieces but just had a bad performance. In that series Melo was horrible. He only shot 40% for crying out loud. Also besides the first two games I disagree that the series was all that competitive, the Lakers won with the ease the last 4 games IMO.
Last edited by CaliRestoration; 08-24-2017 at 09:45 AM..
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But failure by defensive players is often tolerated more, while it's easy for somebody like Dirk to get labeled a choker.
