BOSTON -- Last summer, a frustrated Paul Pierce wasn't sure he wanted to stay with the Boston Celtics and basketball chief Danny Ainge wouldn't commit to keeping him.
Now Pierce is looking forward to spending the rest of his career with the team and Ainge is hailing him as "the best player and the best leader the Celtics have had" since the late 1980s.
"I just feel like I'm getting better with age," Pierce said Tuesday, "becoming a smarter player, maturing as a player."
One day after signing a three-year contract extension that ties him to the Celtics for the next five seasons, Pierce smiled often while surrounded by Ainge, coach Doc Rivers and members of the ownership group at a news conference.
"I wanted to finish my career as a Celtic," Pierce said. "Hopefully, this is another step toward me doing it."
Gone was any sign of his sometimes rocky relationship with Rivers in 2004-05, the coach's first year with the Celtics. And it's been 14 months since he lost his cool and was ejected for elbowing Indiana's Jamaal Tinsley late in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs, which Pierce said was a "bonehead" play.
"I never once looked at Paul as an immature kid or a bad kid," said Ainge, Boston's executive director of basketball operations. "I just think that he didn't handle a situation right, like most of us at 26 and 27."
The 28-year-old Pierce, a five-time All-Star, had been concerned that with many young players on the roster, the Celtics might not become a contender before he retired.
Three weeks after the Celtics' 2004-05 season ended, Ainge didn't rule out trading Pierce, but said he wasn't eager to part with him.
"There were a lot of questions about my future as a Celtic last summer," Pierce said, "a lot of contemplating if this is the right place for me.
"As last summer went on, I knew I wanted to be here. I know I wanted to change things around with my attitude, my play. I knew I wanted to come back and lead the young guys."
Pierce is scheduled to make about $31.5 million over the next two years, including a player option for 2007-08. The extension adds three years and $59 million after that, a basketball official told the Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the terms.
"Whenever you give a player a contract of this magnitude, you're always worried about the pressure of living up to that," Ainge said. "This is old hat for Paul. He's been making some pretty good money."
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