The truth was frustrated with teammates in Brooklyn and Ray Allen
Much like Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce isn’t happy with the state of the NBA from an internal perspective of players joining the league after only a year removed from college to constantly plague fans with mediocrity. In an interview with long-time friend and ESPNBoston.com’s Jackie MacMullan, The Truth followed suit with his legendary nickname to share some experiences of time in the league over the past few years.
Pierce was most vocal about calling his Brooklyn Nets experience horrible and the team morale being low with the exception of himself and Kevin Garnett. He soon ripped Deron Williams saying he envisioned him of being an MVP candidate but didn’t want to be the man we all knew at the time of having potential to be a top 5 point-guard.
Throughout the conversation, he also cited how the relationship with Ray Allen and the Boston Celtics teammates soured over the years and also how the Nets mistreated his friend, Kevin Garnett . After also discussing how he wishes he was younger to have a proper rivalry with LeBron James, he also touched on his current crop of teammates in Washington and how he wants to help them improve their game before he retires in 2016.
“Before I got there, I looked at Deron as an MVP candidate. But I felt once we got there, that’s not what he wanted to be. He just didn’t want that. I think a lot of the pressure got to him sometimes. The media in Utah is not the same as the media in New York.” “Joe is quiet,” Pierce said veteran Joe Johnson was an affable professional but also a reluctant leader. Pierce noted. “He doesn’t want much attention. He doesn’t say much.
It was a weird relationship. We were all good friends on the court, but Ray always did his own thing. That’s just the way Ray was. Even when we were playing together, we’d be having a team dinner and Ray wouldn’t show up. We’d go to his charity events but Ray wouldn’t show up to somebody else’s.” “I called him on it. I said, ‘Man, Ray, we support all your stuff but when we ask you, you don’t come to ours.’ I remember when Rondo re-signed with Boston, we had a little dinner at a restaurant and Ray didn’t show up. “I know Ray probably didn’t like Rondo that much, but it wasn’t a fact of not liking somebody. You don’t have to like everybody you play with — it’s a matter of showing support. “Rondo probably didn’t like Ray either, but he came to Ray’s functions to show, ‘Hey, we’re together in this.’ “It’s not a bad thing with Ray. We had a great relationship on the court. But even the year we won it, after a game we’d say, ‘Let’s go have something to eat and have a night with the older guys.’ We’d get there and it would be me, Kevin and Sam (Cassell), but no Ray. In a lot of ways, me, Sam and Kevin were our Big Three. “It just got to the point where it was, ‘That’s Ray.’ No hard feelings. Everyone made such a big deal of us not talking after we left, but there really wasn’t much there.”
“I talk to them a lot about mental preparation and consistency,” Pierce said. “I keep telling Wall and Beal, ‘You’ve got to make up your mind. Do you want to be good, or do you want to be great? Because if you want to be great, you gotta do it every single night, not just when you feel like it.’ Both of those guys have the potential to be great. I love them. But sometimes I’m not sure they realize what it takes. That was (Rajon) Rondo’s problem, too. Some days he did, some days he didn’t. I think it’s more this generation. A lot of these players have been catered to since the sixth grade. The NBA is changing so much. It’s not like when I came up, with that old-school mentality that practice really mattered. You’ve got these 24, 25 year old guys who sit out of practice now to rest. It’s hard for me to understand, but I’m trying.”
Disclaimer: Read the entire Paul Pierce interview with ESPN HERE.