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Paul Pierce’s Delusions of Grandeur

As the brilliantly executed “There Can Only Be One” ad campaign told us, winning an NBA title confers a player with many perks, including respect from their peers, admiration from fans and an affirmed sense of validity. It would seem for at least one Boston Celtic, it promotes one more upshot: delusions of grandeur.

On Wednesday, well-informed NBA fans were alerted to an interesting story that was developing in Madrid, Spain. Fresh off his Finals MVP, Paul Pierce is currently on vacation in the Spanish capital city. Pierce took time out from taking in the local sites to cause a minor uproar when he partook in an interview with a local basketball reporter.

After exchanging pleasantries, the reporter asked Pierce if he believed Kobe Bryant to be the best player in the world. To this Pierce apparently replied, “I don’t think Kobe is the best player. I’m the best player. There’s a line that separates having confidence and being conceited. I don’t cross that line but I have a lot of confidence in myself.”

Upon reading the interview transcript, I sincerely hoped the comment had been transformed and was a joke. Pierce is bilingual and answered all questions in Spanish, so perhaps he had merely mistranslated and was not being so bold and boastful as to actually say something with such little tact. But after having confirmed the translation via multiple sources, it seems he did in fact proclaim himself the world’s greatest player.

After doing a double and triple-take, I realized Pierce was indeed serious, and a number of explanations for his new self-importance came to my mind. Perhaps his headband was one size too tight during the Finals. Maybe he had been in the Spanish sun too long. Or perhaps the swelling from his Game 1 knee injury had reached his brain.

As a basketball fan, I am unsure whether I find Pierce’s proclamation laughable, insulting, or both. How could Pierce be the game’s best when it is highly debatable whether he is even the best player on his own team? There is no doubting that he dominated the NBA Finals this spring, but Kevin Garnett was Boston’s unquestioned leader and best player for the entirety of the regular season and much of playoffs. It was Garnett, not Pierce that was in contention for MVP and it was Garnett that brought renewed legitimacy to the Celtics franchise. That Pierce could so quickly ennoble himself above his “ubuntu” teammate is surprising.

Further, Pierce calling himself the best player in the world when Kobe Bryant was specifically brought up underpins the level of fallacy in his statement. Pierce is not the player Kobe Bryant is. In fact, it’s not even close. Going into this season, you would have been hard-pressed to justify putting Pierce on a list of the game’s Top 20 players. His memorable postseason has forever changed that, but we cannot suddenly rewrite history and suppose that Pierce, a player that has never been named to the All-NBA Second Team (much less First Team), is the king of the court.

For four of the six games in the NBA Finals he was Bryant’s equal or even his superior, but one series does not a career make. He is nowhere near Bryant’s echelon in regards to ability, fame, or success. He hasn’t the individual talent, the career accolades or the work ethic to ever put himself in the same breath as Bryant, he of three rings, two scoring titles and a MVP.

Paul Pierce proclaiming himself the best player in the world because he beat Bryant’s Lakers in the NBA Finals once is something akin to Anthony Kim beating Tiger Woods at the Masters once and calling himself the best golfer alive.

More importantly, even if he could realistically proclaim himself better than Bryant, just the fact itself that he would think to do so publicly highlights how far from the throne he is. LeBron James, the player most deserving of comparison to Bryant, would never publicly say he was Bryant’s superior. He has more sense than to provoke a man with Bryant’s feverish pride. Bryant would burn a quote like that into his memory as motivation during endless workouts and training sessions.

Moreover, the most elite level of player is secure enough in his place in the game that he would never resort to that sort of sneering and posturing. Many people would take issue if even Bryant publicly declared himself the game’s best player because it shows arrogance and a total lack of diplomacy. Pierce was all too willing to hype himself, revealing the inherent flaw in his argument: if it were true, he wouldn’t need to be the one saying it in the first place.

Elsewhere in the same article, Pierce spoke about the importance of Team USA potentially winning the gold medal at the Olympics in the coming weeks. This merely calls to mind the fact that Pierce elected not to participate in the Team USA program. One would think that the best player in the world would be driven to prove himself such on the highest international stage. His non-participation doesn’t make him any less a player, but it is nonetheless interesting given the presence on the US team of Bryant, James and Chris Paul, the triumvirate of stars that everyone (other than Pierce, apparently) widely recognize as the game’s best and brightest.

This is also not the first incident where Pierce’s crowing reflected poorly. When asked a month ago about the difference between himself and Carmelo Anthony, Pierce curtly pointed out only that he “did not have a DUI.” Apparently prudence is not a tactic Pierce puts much weight in.

None of this takes away from Pierce’s historical Finals performance and it does not take shine off his Larry O’Brien trophy. He is not the first player (and will not be the last) to handle winning and an increased profile so ungraciously. Still though, it is unfortunate that success has not curbed his need to publicly declare his own greatness. It would be more amiable if the man called “The Truth” had simply let his Finals MVP speak it for him.

Photo Credit: Icon Spots Media

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