The new profile of Paul Pierce in Sports Illustrated contains many hilarious anecdotes, including the lede about his refusal to apologize for a risqué video that cost him his job at ESPN.
The story also contains details about Pierce's career, ranging from his surprise fall in the NBA Draft to his early conversations with Doc Rivers.
They didn't get along at first.
At the time, the Celtics were languishing. After getting bounced from the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals, they were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs. That spring, the Celtics hired Danny Ainge as their new president of basketball operations. One of his first major moves was trading Antoine Walker, and Pierce figured he was next.
Instead, Pierce stayed. He started playing under Doc Rivers in 2004. Their relationship did not get off to a good start.
Pierce says he initially got into heated arguments with Rivers about his shot selection.
"They wanted me to pass the ball more," Pierce told Chris Mannix. "Well, who did they want me to pass it to? Jiří Welsch? S---, I'd rather take a bad shot than pass it to Jiří Welsch." (Welsh played 55 games for the Celtics during the 2004-05 campaign.)
Eventually, the Celtics started shopping Pierce. He nixed a trade to the Blazers and pushed his agent to engineer a trade with the Mavericks. That summer, however, Ainge pulled off his brilliant coup: acquiring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. The following season, the Celtics won the championship.
It must've been a lot more appetizing to pass to KG and Allen than Jiří Welsch. That's for sure.
