If you asked me to scrounge together a list of Paul Pierce's utterly biased opinions, I wouldn't even know where to begin. For the sake of argument, I'll mention one that comes to mind instantaneously: the time Pierce was asked he was a better "pure shooter" than Klay Thompson, inherently not a question over who was the better overall player. I'll let you surmise what he answered without giving it away.
A similar situation presented itself just the other day during an ESPN broadcast. A panel which included Paul Pierce was discussing Dwyane Wade's NBA legacy due to his impending retirement. Knowing full well it wouldn't take much to get Pierce riled up, the moderator asked him whether he'd enjoyed a better NBA career than Dwyane Wade, to which he answered, "That's easy, I could say that off the bat. That's me!"
"If you give me Shaq if you give me LeBron...I'd be sitting on 5 or 6 championships easy," he continued before the panel stopped him in his tracks.
As you might imagine, a couple of notable members of the NBA community chimed in soon after, including his comparable D-Wade. On the surface, the problem doesn't lie in the fact Pierce rates himself superior to D-Wade. In reality, the gap between the two players is close, so an argument could be made with some kind of rhetorical logic.
Will Newton/Getty Images
The problem is... Paul Pierce doesn't have to be so audacious, especially since he now works as a sports pundit, a job that requires a certain level of detachment and objectivity. But Pierce's cocky spirit is also what made him a championship player in the end.
Dwyane Wade's response to Paul Pierce wasn't even all that damning, as he chose to highlight someone's else reactionary logic: that of NBA-peer Jared Dudley who questioned the former Celtics' forward over his sobriety. "Cocaine is helleva drug," Dudley wrote. "Both has great careers but Dwade is 3rd best SG of all-time." Wade then responded directly to Dudley's post by insisting, "You said it better than I could." With all that said, who do you rate at a higher clip: The Flash or The Truth?