Pierce ready to play his Clippers role
‘I’m here to help in any way I can,’ says veteran, who is reuniting with Rivers.
Paul Pierce loved the Lakers growing up. They practiced in his Inglewood High gym, just a quick turn on Manchester Boulevard from their home at the Forum. Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal would go on to give Pierce his nickname, dubbing him “The Truth” after a 42-point game in 2001 by the then-Boston Celtics star.
Pierce’s experiences with his hometown Clippers were, uh, different.
“They gave away tickets, the Inglewood YMCA,” Pierce recalled Tuesday, “to go to a lot of Clippers games.”
In 1992, the Clippers made the playoffs but their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, didn’t make much of an impression on a 14-yearold Pierce.
“Not at the time,” Pierce said with a chuckle.
Funny how things can change. Pierce is coming home to finish a possible Hall of Fame career with the Clippers by his own choosing, reuniting the 10-time AllStar with Rivers seven years after the coach and his small forward teamed to win an NBA title with the Celtics.
“Things really happen for a reason,” Pierce said during a media conference at Staples Center. “I think this is the right timing. Perfect opportunity here today. And I’m glad to say I’m a Clipper.”
Pierce took roughly half the salary he would have received to return to the Washington Wizards, accepting a three-year, $10.5-million contract from the Clippers earlier this month.
He said one thing would remain constant from his time with the Wizards: his role. Pierce will be a complementary player to stars Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, cognizant that his steadying voice in the locker room could be just as valuable as his play on the team’s redesigned home court.
“I’m not here to be the man; I’m here to help in any way I can,” said Pierce, who’ll turn 38 in October. “I understand this is Chris’s, Blake’s and DeAndre’s team.”
Pierce may be elderly in NBA years, but he’s not an old you-know-what. He contributed to the famed emoji war between the Clippers and Dallas Mavericks to win Jordan’s affection, though he tweeted a picture of a rocket ship instead of a rocket emoji.
“Because I’m old school, how about that?” Pierce explained with a smile.
The Clippers tried to enCrenshaw gineer a Pierce homecoming last year but committed their primary financial tool — the midlevel exception — to Spencer Hawes, a bust in his one season with the team.
The lure of a championship-caliber roster and a Rivers reunion was enough to land Pierce this time around. Sort of.
“Doc wasn’t really influential,” Pierce deadpanned, before making a reference to a onetime Celtics teammate and current Clippers assistant coach. “It was more Sam Cassell than anybody.”
It also won’t hurt having Patrick Roy around. Roy was Pierce’s high school coach and the reason Pierce is the most famous basketball player to come out of Inglewood and not Crenshaw High. Pierce brief ly attended as a sophomore before receiving a call from Roy, the new varsity coach at Inglewood.
“When I got the job I called his mom, I called him up [and] I said, ‘What are you doing? You’ve got to come back home,’ ” Roy said Tuesday. “And the next week he was back home.”
Pierce, an Oakland native who moved to Southern California as a child, starred at Inglewood and at Kansas before the Celtics drafted him 10th overall in 1998. But he never neglected his roots. He gladly paid about $32,000 for a room equipped with flatscreen TVs and computers at Inglewood High for the basketball team that Roy described as nicer than the Chick Hearn Press Room inside Staples Center.
Pierce also sits on the bench at Inglewood whenever he can and speaks to players via speakerphone before big games. His presence only figures to increase as the local hero who came home to fashion a Hollywood ending.
“I guess my biggest concern,” Pierce said, “is probably tickets.”