It sucks seeing a winner like Pierce in this situation. He needs a star beside him, not a young developing team. He doesn`t have time for that.
It sucks seeing a guy whine like this when he makes the most money. The guy has nothing to complain about because he's the team's center piece. He's the team's best player, but he's got a situation where he's making a lot of money and he's guaranteed that money if he should ever get hurt. It's not like the Celtics had a healthy roster this season and Pierce wasn't even healthy. Plus, it still takes an experienced team with nba polished talent to win and you can't do that with just young players still learning the individual and team game. I just don't like it when high paid star players whine and they're also hurt a lot during the season and their second and third best players are hurt too. Celtics could have used Pierce to play rather than whine. It'd also be nice to have a pure point guard that can make plays and shoot the ball. I think many of the Celtics small guards can't shoot that well and the guys who can shoot aren't really pure point guards. That's a big problem right there when the other shooting guards aren't really playmakers, either. Maybe this whole thing that Paul Pierce is saying is to get Danny Ainge to wake up and make better deals. In the short time frame that Ainge became GM of the Celtics, I never thought Ainge was a good sign of better things to come. Since his first move in dealing Antoine Walker, I can't recall anything spectacular that he's done. Maybe Ricky Davis was pretty decent. But he got traded and got back Wally Sczerbiak and an expiring deal which just provides salary relief... I'd rather have Ricky D at least until Gerald Green was truly ready. Green looks awesome when he's on, but he doesn't know the game that well, I think.
I really don't view his comments as whining, or as anything negative to be honest. The media around here seems like it wants Pierce to be unhappy. constantly asking questions in an attempt to get quotes like this. I think its hard for people to accept that a player of his caliber hasn't demanded a trade yet. If anything, the team is in much better shape now than it was last offseason. Jefferson has gone from a decent low post threat to borderline all star, Rondo is a decent jumpshot away from becoming a solid point guard, and other Celtics like West, Allen, Green and Perkins have made leaps in the right direction. And even with all that positive progression, they're also in great position to draft one of the two franchise changing rookies in the upcoming draft. You also have to factor in the injuries to Pierce and Wally, the C's two leading scorers, and also the loss of Tony Allen who led the team in scoring while Pierce was out for 25 straight games. Allen is the team's best perimeter and one on one defender, so losing him has meant a lot more than most people think. In all honesty, I think this team is much better than last year's, and for Pierce to become frustrated all of a sudden wouldn't make sense. If anything, he's only upset about his lack of individual accomplishments because he can't really be upset with the direction of this team, especially considering that he agreed to an extension when the team was much less promising. On Danny Ainge, I can still agree with and defend his job as GM because what he started with was so horrendous. When the Celts got him, the roster was filled with aging role players with large contracts and virtually no trade value. Yes, they had some recent success, but it was clearly not the nucleus of a contender and their success had more to do with weak competition in the eastern conference than it did with solid team play. I have my doubts about whether or not those teams would even make the playoffs in today's NBA. The team also had no young talent whatsoever, so basically there was nothing to work with at all. Sure, Ainge has taken much longer than he originally planned to turn it all around, but that's because he underestimated how difficult it is to rebuild an NBA team. I can't think of an NBA GM that has done more with less. Usually, teams that rebuild quickly have the benefit having tradeable assets, or they are lucky enough to acquire a top tier player in the first 5 picks of the draft. Ainge has benefited from neither. This offseason will probably make or break his career, though. He has a lot of decisions to make and he needs to turn some of the young players in for some more consistent veterans if the team is going to turn the corner. The ping pong balls don't necessarily have to bounce in his favor, but if they do, his future should be secured for another couple years.
come to the chi PLEASE we would love him deng gordon pierce damn tahts too much to handle with tyt and b wal damn that sounds good
