Getty Former NBA Player Paul Pierce before Game Seven of the 2018 NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers at TD Garden on May 27, 2018.
Paul ‘The Truth’ Pierce is a future Hall of Fame, who is slated to be inducted in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. During his 19 year career, he was a 10-NBA All-Star with the Boston Celtics.
Pierce averaged 19.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 1,343 games, and he would finish his career as the 15th on the All-time Scores list 100 points behind 2020 Hall of Fame finalist Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.
Pierce spent 14 seasons in Boston after the Celtics took him 10th overall in the 1998 draft out of the University of Kansas. He would go on to win a champion and a Finals MVP in Boston, but if you ask him, he would’ve rather played elsewhere. The Truth recently shared on the latest episode of the All the Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, that he was hoping to be drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers.
“The Clippers was the number one pick,” he said. “And I was like, I wanna go home and play. So I worked out for them, and then I asked them for a second workout, and the [Los Angeles] Clippers wanted a big man, so they pick [Michael] Olowokandi.”
The Truth is from The Bay [Oakland] but grew up in Inglewood, California, so Pierce wanted to stay home and play in front of family and friends made since. The Clippers decided to go with Olowokandi, and the Celtics drafted Pierce. It’s kind of ironic because Pierce has been on the record saying he grew up a Lakers fan.
“I was competitive,” he said. “I wanted to be the number one pick, at worst two. So now all those eight, nine teams that passed on me, you’re going to feel this one.”
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Celtics’ Paul Pierce Reveals Which Team he Wanted to Draft Him in 1998