"Take this down," said O'Neal. "My name is Shaquille O'Neal and Paul Pierce is the truth. Quote me on that and don't take nothing out. I knew he could play, but I didn't know he could play like this. Paul Pierce is the truth."
I am fairly certain the first few times I read this it was 'Paul Pierce is the motherfucking truth' which is why Shaq felt the need to specify that the whole quote be preserved - somehow the internet seems to filter everything through someone else's google settings and remove the functional vinegar from these things.
Even if he didnt say it, well, he meant it.
I left off talking about how reading The Book of Basketball - Bill Simmons' new book I came to and was forced to stop after the Paul Pierce entry. Bill Simmons currently has Pierce listed as the 54th member of a ranked Hall of Fame known hereforto as the 'Pyramid'. 54 is okay - I would have listed him after DJ, also, but just before Wade? I don't know - He makes some jumps in projection that I just can't fathom, but his basketball knowledge is markedly deeper than my own, so I'll allow it.
Actually, that last bit is total bullshit, I dont agree. Wade is an electric creator, a good defender, a stout competitor - but his greatest achievements in basketball to date is that he plays harder than his body can hold up to and that he figured out the refs would give him the Finals if he kept throwing himself at the floor. Pierce might be the toughest player in the modern NBA, with stories relative to Reed and Bird as far as 'how the hell did he come back from that' injuries mixed with high end pressure performances - so that's not even a rub, that's a blow out.
And Pierce, after his long and troubled career is finally getting credit for taking a championship - replete with his Game 1 omigodpaultorehisknee (though it should be noted that was in line with Paul's odd sense of the dramatic...let us not recall too hard the bandaged head incident...) - and it was taking, I know Ray played amazing, I know a lot of people wanted him to get the MVP, but that would have been ridiculous. Pierce owned that series on the defensive end and in the clutch over and over. It was...breathtaking.
Here is my major issue - what has Wade gone through? When did Wade become a man? Do Miami fans know? I don't think so. He hasnt been around long enough, he hasn't really dealt with adversity, per say - yes, knee injury, yes the team imploded after he wont the Championship....AFTER, HE WON ONE at, like, 24? Cry me a river.
For a moment let's ignore that Dennis Fucking Johnson is only 1 place above Wade...how can you compare Dwade's career with Pierce? I dont think that's realistic...here is a player....I'm going to start babbling. Listen. I am a fan of the New England Patriots. I enjoy pre-08 Red Sox baseball. Once upon a time I watched the Bruins.
I like Basketball.
I love Paul Pierce like he is a sibling. Or my very good friend - or like he was my hero. Because he sort of is - but not in a relatable way. I dont relate to him. We lack parallels. But more than any single athlete of the modern era, more than anyone I have ever watched in film, or on tv, or in the pursuit of athletics, he is a real, honest to goodness, person.
We, as Celtics fans, have watched his star rise, gutter, fall and come alight in redemption like no other - it takes a certain franchise to stick by a guy who is destroying himself and his career in front of the widest stages possible...and a certain player to realize it and respond. Paul Pierce suddenly realized that he wanted to retire in green. That he wanted that banner - the organization mattered to him.
I'm a young man - he is too - but this relationship bears no resemblance to any other I have as a fan. I'm proud of him. I cried and cried when they won the Championship, the body just reacted - I was teary, the game just ended the Ray Allen commercial played and I started weeping. They came back and Paul was named MVP and..oh man.
I wonder if I will ever appreciate a player this way - his glorious splash into the NBA as a high-energy scoring tweener guard/forward (with a ridiculous high-top fade he wore but never really owned), the odd providence that had him fall to us at 10. His promise, him almost dying in that nightclub, his return, the sullen, darker player that he became, the burden of all those banners, of the crumbled franchise, of expectation - watching his legacy tarnish and the effect it had on him, melting down against the Pacers, his anger, his petulence, and then all this.
How many athletes recover from the first fall? Especially in the NBA, so much money, so fast, such a destructive lifestyle - so many talents for the game are ruined because there is no one teaching classes on how to go from being impoverished or struggling to inconceivably wealthy. To suffer those emotional pitfalls and also the physical - to recover from the stabbing, to be the heart of a badly damaged organization, floundering through it's worst years - let alone to think of losing another star so tragically - we have the unparalleled luxury of watching his success, of having stood by, of having been there the whole time.
If you were from a different town, I doubt it would make sense - in the same way that it is difficult to understand the quality of someone's game without watching them all the time to see the subtle nuances, the breaks in the step, I imagine it would be much harder to notice changes in character, seeing Paul go from all that was left of the Celtics to just...a Celtic. It took a long time, years, and it is time not often granted a player. And to be so instrumental in returning meaning to that word, that jersey and our town.
Am profoundly moved by Pierce's story - I cant think of anything quite like it, how narrowly he avoided being just another tragic figure in Boston's basketball history, and came to be one of it's favorite sons. And if not that, at least mine - I dont have a proper description for my reaction to his success, when Paul Pierce lights it up in a game, I get silly - it's like my little brother, supposing I had one, was tearing it up down the lane for a series of improbably ugly and-one drives. I like it when national announcers recognize some measure of his game - it's hard to deal with someone not from here appreciating his preternatural ability to get his defender off the ground, or the way he finishes drives desperately looking for contact - just his toughness.
Because that's what I appreciate most, I think, is all he managed to endure to find himself, now, suddenly accepted, suddenly fully appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment