Big-ticket pickups inspired Bryant, Pierce

ShareThis

WALTHAM, Mass. -- They sat together last June, two disgruntled NBA stars swigging water after a pickup game at UCLA. One, a three-time champion, had already gone national with his desire to be traded. The other, frustrated by years of losing and teammates barely out of high school, bet that he would be traded first. "The crazy thing about this is, this time last year, I remember being in the gym with Kobe, and all I was doing was 'Who's going to get traded first?'" Paul Pierce was saying with a chuckle. As we are all well aware, the Los Angeles Lakers did not trade Kobe Bryant, the Boston Celtics did not trade Paul Pierce, and Thursday night they will take the floor at the for Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals. That bet? "Nobody won the bet. We both stayed with the teams. That's what's so crazy. Now we're both sitting here in the Finals," Pierce said Monday. The Celtics and Lakers are still playing because Mitch Kupchak and Danny Ainge traded boldly to improve. Kupchak, the Lakers' general manager, acquired Pau Gasol from Memphis in February for two first-round draft picks, three players and the rights to Gasol's brother Marc. That move sparked the team to a 57-25 record, the best in the Western Conference. Ainge, the Celtics basketball boss, traded for Ray Allen of Seattle on draft day last June and a month later imported Kevin Garnett from Minnesota in exchange for Boston's supposed future, Ryan Gomes, Al Jefferson and Sebastian Telfair, and Theo Ratlif. Almost overnight the Celtics went from one of NBA's worst to one of the best. They won 66 games this season. "It's a hell of a journey. You don't really understand it until you get close to where you are. There are times you want to give up and times when you want to move on," Pierce said. "There's so much satisfaction staying and sticking with it, seeing things turn around after all the things you went through. That's gratification for me. Those are the things I think about these days." But a year ago, after a 24-win season, Pierce was ready to move on. He saw no indication that the Celtics were ready to challenge for the playoffs, never mind a championship. "Definitely," he said, "I pretty much thought it was over. I can't even explain it. I thought I was going to be a Los Angeles Clipper. I thought I was going to be anywhere but a Celtic." Pierce was thrilled when the Celtics traded for Allen, and it was the new teammate who broke the news four weeks later than Garnett was coming. "I was at home in Los Angeles, and I was like 'Really?' Then I talked to Danny . . . I couldn't really believe it. I was excited just getting Ray at the time because I figured we got Ray, an improving Al Jefferson, at least we're taking steps toward improving. Then we found Kevin, and it was like icing on the cake, man." With the arrival of Allen and Garnett, Pierce had to adjust from being The Man to be one of the New Big Three. They talked about sacrificing their individual games to win games. "So who cares who gets the last shot? Who cares who scores the most points? Who cares who gets the praise? Because at the end of the day, if we win, we all win. That was our mindset from the beginning. We don't care. We've all got accolades. We've all won different awards. We all have done so much in our career, but we haven't won a championship." Pierce had no doubt that Ainge's daring moves would work. He looked at Garnett and saw the epitome of intensity, an MVP. He looked at Allen, a steady scorer, an All-Star. "I knew these guys were unselfish. You see the way they played with their teams," he said. "And I knew the way that I could play. A lot of people didn't think I could adjust to them, but I was like, shoot, that's going to be easy for me because now I've got somebody I can pass the ball to. Before, it was hard for me to trust an 18-year-old rookie coming out of high school, you know what I mean? I'm surrounded by players like that. So it's hard for me to trust them. But when you put Ray and Kevin and (James) Posey and Eddie (House) in, it's easy for me. It's easy for me to say, 'Hey, there goes Eddie in the corner; there goes Pose wide open.' I'm going to give it up without a second thought. So once you got those players around that I could trust, I knew this whole thing could work because of all of us being unselfish." Pierce also learned a few lessons on unselfishness from coach Doc Rivers. Their relationship got off to a rocky start when Rivers took over in 2004-2005. Rivers saw Pierce as a ball hog and whiner who failed to understand his role as a team leader. "I didn't think it was going to work. Now I love the guy," Pierce said. "It was about me maturing. After that first year I just had to go home and grow up . . . stop pouting, go out and work hard and help these young guys out, teach them a little something . . ." Rivers told Pierce that regardless of the rebuilding frustrations, "you've got to still go out there and play, you're still the captain of this team, they still pay you to play, so you've got to go out there and do your job and do it to the best of your ability, and whatever happens, happens." Told of Pierce's comments and his feelings of a year ago, Rivers smiled. "I'm glad (Bryant) stayed out West. I'm glad Paul stayed here. I'm glad it worked out the way it worked out," he said. So are Pierce and Bryant.(Contact Mike Szostak at mszostak@projo.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)