Though Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade won more and had more individual accolades, apparently, some NBA players believe Paul Pierce is better. While talking with Pierce, Amin Elhassan revealed on “The Dan Le Batard Show” that many NBA players would take him over Wade.
“Dan, I’ma say this about Paul. Paul, I said this: when you said Dwyane Wade, you made your comparison to Dwyane Wade’s career, everyone went crazy. I said, ‘What Paul said is something that a lot of NBA players think.’ And I’m not even agreeing with you, to be honest, but I understood what you were saying was from the heart and the truth because I know there are a lot of players who think that but aren’t brave enough to say it out loud.”
Both Wade and the Boston Celtics legend won championships as well as NBA Finals MVP. However, Wade has a more accomplished resume than Pierce. Besides winning more titles, Wade has made more All-NBA teams, All-Defense teams, and more All-Star teams. He was also the league’s scoring champion in 2009.
The NBA was different when they played compared to the modern NBA. Perhaps they would have been remembered differently if they played nowadays.
Paul Pierce Believes He Was Better Than Dwyane Wade
Elhassan’s comments were in reference to when Paul Pierce declared himself better than Dwyane Wade back when he worked for ESPN in 2019. Pierce explained why he believed he was better than Wade.
“That’s easy — I can say that off the bat, that’s me,” Pierce said on NBA Countdown. “If you give me Shaq, if you give me LeBron… When I was 24 years old, if you give me Shaq. When I’m 24 or 25, you give me LeBron and Bosh, I’d be sitting on five or six championships. Easy.”
Pierce won no championships as a player until the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. The furthest we went without them was in 2002 when they made the Eastern Conference Finals. Without Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh, the furthest Wade went was the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2016.
Both Pierce and Wade had help throughout their NBA career. There’s no telling how either would have done with the teammates they played with around the time that they did.
Dwyane Wade Urges People to Appreciate All-Star Game
Many were disappointed in the lack of effort made by the players in the 2024 NBA All-Star Game. However, Dwyane Wade urged viewers to treasure the players while they are in their prime.
“We don’t appreciate nothing when it’s happening – we only appreciate when it’s gone,” Wade told Southern China Morning Post’s Mike Chan in a February 26 story. “The world is different. Let’s just enjoy the greatness that we get to see.
“The game is surrounded by outside shots, shooting and scoring, it’s not surrounded by defence any more. It’s a whole different beast, so you can’t ask the players to change their mindset for an All-Star Game.”
Wade made the All-Star team from 2005 to 2016, then made it again in his last NBA season in 2019. Wade started in 10 of those All-Star games.
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Players Would Take Celtics Legend Over Heat Icon Dwyane Wade: Analyst