Man, it'd be great to have him with Tmac and Yao. A change of scenery would definitely do well for him imo. It ain't happenin, but it would be fun to watch.
This is the same Paul Pierce that effectively sulked through this past season until Ainge traded for his buddy Antoine Walker. The Celtics have one of the better batches of young talent in the league right now and holding onto pierce and walker is just holding them back. I'd like to see Al Jefferson, Perkins, Tony Allen Delonte West and Marcus Banks get more of a chance to shine. Pierce would bristle at the idea of deferring to one guy, let alone Yao and T-Mac. If you watch the Celtics play, you'll see they let him run loose and do whatever he wants in the half-court, i.e. tons and tons of iso out of the triple-threat stance. The last thing we need is an offensive black-hole.
Too big a financial commitment. Even if Boston would trade him for just our expiring contracts (yeah, right), Pierce has a huge amount of money left. More likely, any talks would start with us taking guys like Lafrentz or Blount off their hands, enhancing that amount. There were a few people last year who wanted us to get Pierce instead of TMac (there were rumors of Boston trading Pierce for TMac basically straight). Funny how that changed.
How would you feel about acquiring the same Tracy McGrady who effectively sulked through a season with the Magic? What a cancer THAT guy would be! Let him get his change of scenery somewhere else.
sorry, i can't listen to people diss Paul Pierce like this. what more does this man have to do to help his team win???he hits big shots to win games, rebounds, and is an overall great player. it's not his fault that the celtics haven't been able to put anyone else around him who can actually play (i love GP but at his age his become a decent role player, and antoine walker does nothing but chunk up threes and somehow get praise for it). pierce is a terrific player who can do anything on the court. him and tmac would be awesome. but the real hole with this team is at the PF position and speed in the backcourt.
I am not really a Pierce fan.....but he certainly would make the Rockets deadly! Having guys like Pierce and Tmac on the wings with Yao in the middle would make our opposition really struggle. In this scenario you could actually move Tmac back to the 2 spot because he is quicker than Pierce and then you would have the LUXARY of being able to allow Tmac to expend energy on the defensive end knowing that you also had a quality guy in Pierce to help in the 4th quarter. With that said though, I dont see us making a move with Boston. If they want to unload Pierce they are going to want to get an asset back, not just clear cap money. The best play for Boston IF they want to move Pierce is to deal with the Blazers. The Blazers are looking for quality SGs and are said to be dangling the #3 pick. What if the Blazers traded the Celtics Miles and the #3 for Pierce? Then the Celts would take Gerald Green at #3. You could add a few more contracts in there but that could be the meat of the deal. I think there is serious potential there for a deal.
Getting Pierce would be cause for too many shots for our 3 bigs. I know Yao is considered to be a humble guy and someone that would sacrifice his shots for someone else, but that's the exact opposite of what we want. We want him to be agressive, and demand the ball. Not defer to another guy that can't do much else but score. Just say no to Paul Pierce. We need a more viable PG option, and a solid PF who can grab ya 10 boards a night and be a good weak side defender while being able to hit the midrange jumper with consistency. Ideally a 10 point, 10 board guy would be a dream come true for the Rockets at the PF position, but that's considered a near max contract kind of numbers in todays league which is a shame.
The Thread's quote claims ''Right now, there is no demand for Paul Pierce out there. None.", so how does he get them the #3 pick? As for dangling thast pick, the J'Blazers are reportedly looking to trade 'down' a couple of places, not out of the 1st,
Well that is an idiotic quote! No demand for Pierce? That's Jackie MacMullen with histrionics. Of course there is a demand for him. The Blazers would only look to trade down so they could get Green a few spaces lower than at #3. But if the Blazers were going to offer Pierce for #3 the Blazers would jump at the chance!
I Threaded the quote. If he really is available, cheap, I really want him. I'm not first person averring either, but -- if... iF Blazers' #3 WERE offered with a bad contract for Pierce would C's jump?
I would pass on it. There is plenty of adequite talent with a lower price tag. Plus, he might try to take over. F that.
How are we supposed to afford TMac + Yao + Paul Pierce? You're talking basically about 3 max-contract type guys here all on one roster.
What's the big deal about having 3 max contract players? If you're over the cap, you're over the cap. It's actually probably better to give all the money to someone like Pierce than split it up among the likes of Mo and Weatherspoon.
I can't believe there is more interest in bringing in Ron "Dennis Rodman was never as crazy as I am" Artest, than in Paul Pierce. Even guys like Darius Miles, and Kwame Brown have seemingly gotten better receptions on this board. Miles and Brown who haven't done crap compared to what Pierce has been doing since he came into this league. And what's with this, PP will ruin chemistry by coming in and trying to be "The Man". It's pretty obvious to me for the past couple of years, PP has been suffering from T-Macitis. Trying to carry a below average team without any help can get any player's spirits down. I'm sure he would gladly take the option to downgrade his role, if it means more winning and less burdens. And it's not like his trade value is low because his production has dropped off. In fact this was a bounce back year for PP. He had better shooting percentages across the board than T-Mac. PP grabbed more boards, and for all the talk about how he's a turnover machine, PP only averaged .2 more TOs than Mcgrady. And how many people have suggested that we bring in Jason Kidd in the past couple of months. Well Pierce is younger, healthier, and won't be a liablity on defense. Yes a top shelf PG would be great for the team, but whether Kidd is a top shelf PG is still up in the air. PP is a top shelf swingman, and he's only 27 so he's just hitting his prime now. And Kidd has about 4 years and 75 million left on his deal, whereas Pierce is more like 3 years and 45 mill. When you've got the chance to pair up the second coming of Jordan/Pippen, along with Yao Ming in the middle, you do it. T-mac being a "rich man's Pippen" with better passing, ball-handling, and all-around offensive skills. And Pierce being a "poor man's Jordan" with the ability to score efficiently, get to the line a lot, and rebound and defend. Now the question is, "Is Paul Pierce available for expiring contracts, and draft picks." Well I don't know. I'm sure getting Lafrentz off the books would be very nice for the Celts. But ultimately if they ship off PP just to get rid of Lafrentz, then it only makes Ainge look like a gigantic idiot for trading for Lafrentz in the first place. If they didn't trade for Lafrentz, then Walker's contract would be expiring and they wouldn't need to ship out Pierce to get rid of that albatross contract. To be honest, I doubt that the Celts will ship off PP for pennies on the dollar.... at least not yet. Boston is my prediction for team that will get blown up before the trade deadline for 2005/2006. And they probably won't be the only one. So unless we can get some formidable upgrades with our expiring contracts this summer, I'd rather keep them for the trade deadline, when teams start losing hope.
