Paul Pierce laments Kevin Durant's Warrior decision as sign of a less competitive generation
The Truth is not impressed with KD's decision to head to the Bay.
By
Matt Moore
•
3 min read
Everyone has an opinion of Kevin Durant's decision to leave Oklahoma City to join the super team in Golden State. Most have already been shared, but on Thursday Paul Pierce went on Sirius XM radio and talked about it.
Basically, the Truth was not impressed with the decision:
"I could have left Boston years ago but I stuck it out. I just feel like when you're that close as a competitor, you don't go join the team that just pushed you out. That's just me personally but we're living in a day and time where there's a new generation. Guys I don't think they are as hungry or competitive as my generation was, and that's why you'll probably see more of that."
OK, sorry, all respect to the future Hall of Famer, but there are some quibbles here.
1. Pierce wanted out when the Celtics were struggling as he entered his prime before Danny Ainge called in every favor he could from former teammate Kevin McHale and landed Kevin Garnett. Here's Pierce in his own words from the Vertical podcast in February, transcribed by CSN:
"It was just discouraging," Pierce explained to Mannix. "It was just like I want people to know who Paul Pierce is, what type of player he is, but the only way to do that is to be on the big stage, be in the playoffs with a shot at the championship. It was discouraging playing so well and not reaching the team success that I wanted to reach. Because at the end of the day, that's how you're going to be measured on how your team does more than what you do as an individual. When I didn't see that, the results of that, it created doubts where maybe I could go somewhere else and find that. "
Source: Paul Pierce: Celtics Came 'Real Close' To Portland Trade; I Wanted To Go To Dallas | NBA | NESN.com.
Now, the fact that Durant was on a stacked OKC team that made the Western Conference finals four years out of six, each season Durant and Russell Westbrook were healthy together, should matter here. That Celtics team was going nowhere, and wasted some incredible Pierce seasons as a result. But if Pierce is going to say that you just stick it out, after he's already said he was willing to leave, then that gets tricky. Pierce did stay, though, and that undeniably made that title with Boston that much more special. You just can't act like you don't understand the impulse, when you yourself told people you almost got out for the exact same reasons.
2. Durant is a pretty competitive guy. It's hard to argue against that. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be arguably the second-best player in the NBA. So to make this into some sort of generational gap in competitiveness is kind of a red herring.
3. So ... where does Kevin Garnett leaving Minnesota and joining Pierce with Ray Allen to form a super-team fit in this whole "sticking it out" thing?
4. Where Pierce is on track, though, is who Durant joined. Durant didn't take off for an Eastern Conference team, or even join the Spurs. He went to the very team that he had on the ropes in the Western Conference Finals and who he very much seemed to have bad blood with during that series. He literally could not beat the Warriors so he literally joined them. Pierce might have bailed on Boston, but it was this line of thinking that made he and Kevin Garnett so upset with Ray Allen for joining the Heat.
It's not always what you do, it's how you do it, but Pierce isn't 100 percent in the right here, either.
