The Truth spent three years in Lawrence playing under Roy Williams before exploding into superstar status with the Celtics.
Last night Paul Pierce passed up Larry Bird on the Celtics all-time scoring list and is now no. 2. Pierce is a first-ballot hall-of-famer with no questions asked.
Truth has scored 21,812 points and every single one of them was as a Celtic. In my mind over 20,000 points is almost an automatic bid into the hall at some point. Even if it wasn’t, Pierce got the championship ring to seal his place in history. When Pierce is done playing, he’s going to go down as one of the greatest player to ever wear the green and white.
I hate the Celtics. However, Paul Pierce will always and forever be one of my favorite players because he attended Kansas University. Pierce is the only NBA superstar besides Wilt Chamberlain to come out of Kansas. There’s been plenty of great college players and teams but no superstars in the league besides #34. Just by being so great for so long, Pierce has helped the program without even reaching out or being there. Roy Williams wouldn’t even let Pierce shoot the three in college, he was more of a mid-range, slashing type player until he developed the deadly range as a pro. Pierce average 16.4 points and 6.3 rebounds in three season at Kansas and was drafted 10th overall in the loaded 1998 NBA draft.
Just last season he put my Knicks to sleep in the playoffs game 3 with 38 points including 6-for-8 from three point range. He’s 34 years old and has slowed down some but the jumper is the last thing that goes and truth is still averaging 18.4 pts, 5.7 reb, 5.6 ast on the season and is trying to put the Celtics on his back. When it comes down the crunch time there are few better clutch scorers than Pierce and he deserves everything he gets for sticking with the Celtics when they were terrible for all those years.
Career Games: 48 points vs Nets 12/1/01, 50 points, 7 reb, 8 ast vs Cavs 2/15/06, 46 points, 6 ast vs 76ers in playoffs 5/3/02, 41 vs Cavs game 7 5/15/08, 37 points, 10 reb, 8 ast vs Indiana playoffs 4/27/03
It will be interesting to see if the Truth can play long enough to somehow pass John Havlicek, who had 26,395 for his career. Even if he doesn’t, players like Paul Pierce don’t come around often so enjoy him while he’s here.
