Former NBA star Paul Pierce has dished out some sizzling hot takes over the years, and he was at it again on Thursday. Pierce claimed he was probably the best pure scorer in the history of the NBA on Speak, and received a lot of pushback for that.
If you’d thought that would lead to Pierce changing his mind, though, you’d be mistaken. The 47-year-old doubled down, picking himself as the better pure scorer over the likes of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant, via Speak.
Q: “Paul Pierce or Michael Jordan?”
Paul Pierce: “I can score in more ways than Michael Jordan.”
Q: “Paul Pierce or Allen Iverson?”
Pierce: “I can score in more ways than Allen Iverson.”
Q: “Paul Pierce or Kevin Durant?”
Pierce: “That’s close. I think I got a little more post-game than Kevin. We got a lot of the same arsenal, but I got him a little bit.”
Q: “Paul Pierce or Steph Curry?”
Pierce: “Oh yeah, I can do more offensively than Steph.”
Q: “Paul Pierce or James Harden?”
Pierce: “My middy is better than James’. My post-game is better than James’. About even on threes, going to the rack. Paul Pierce.”
Q: “Paul Pierce or [Tracy McGrady]?”
Pierce: “Now that one was close. Wow. Man, T-Mac like, he can post-up; he can do a lot of things, down screen, off the dribble. Damn. I got to the line more than him. I’m taking me.”
Q: “Last one. Paul Pierce or LeBron James?”
Pierce: “This is not even a conversation.”
It’s true that Pierce could do a lot of different things well when it came to scoring. There were no real holes in his game, and he finished his career with an average of 19.7 points per game. He averaged 25 or more points in five separate seasons, which is quite impressive.
All that said, Pierce’s all-around abilities didn’t translate to him becoming one of the very best scorers in NBA history. He never won a scoring title in his career and didn’t manage to shoot 50% from the field in any of his 19 seasons either.
So, despite having that all-around game, Pierce wasn’t an all-time great volume scorer and wasn’t very efficient either. At the end of the day, that’s what really matters.
Jordan, for example, won a record 10 scoring titles during his storied career and shot over 50% from the field in six seasons. Durant, meanwhile, has won four scoring titles and has failed to shoot over 50% from the field in just five seasons in a career that has spanned nearly two decades.
Even James, whom Pierce dismissed, has gone down as a better scorer than him. The 21-time All-Star is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and has averaged at least 25 points in 20 seasons. He has also shot at least 50% from the field in 14 of his 22 seasons.
Ultimately, it’s your production that matters. This conversation is similar to the one about who has the better “bag?” James dismissed the “no bag” talk recently by hilariously stating he has 50 billion points. You can try to diminish his scoring prowess all you want, but the numbers don’t lie.
