Pierce thinks NBA has gone soft: 'We don't have rivalries anymore'

The list of older or retired NBA players who believe the league is losing its "competitive fire" has been growing steadily over the past couple years, and you can add one more to that list - 18-year veteran Paul Pierce.

"I don't think the league is as competitive as it was, let's say like, 10 years ago, where you've got the superstars going at one another, talking smack, creating rivalries," Pierce told ESPN's "Mike and Mike" show. "We don't have rivalries anymore. The closest thing to it is Golden State and Cleveland, which could end up being a great rivalry, but outside of that, you don't have any individual rivalries, a Kobe vs. LeBron. Individual rivalries are just not there anymore."

Pierce has been in his fair share of individual rivalries with guys like LeBron and Kobe over the years, which culminated in a Championship in 2008 alongside Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. To add to that, he grew up watching Larry Bird's Celtics suit up against Magic Johnson's Lakers in three hard-fought Finals battles throughout the 80s, and Michael Jordan grit and grind through those feisty Knicks and Pacers teams in the 90s, so his words and perspective shouldn't come as a surprise.

However, those days - according to the Celtics legend - are over, and he sees only a couple current players who possess that inherent fiery quality.

"We were friends then, don't get me wrong," Pierce continued. "I have friends too. But you wouldn't know it by the way we competed on the court, and you couldn't see it.

"I believe the person who really has the 80s, 90s, early 2000s genes of competitive fire are dead and gone. You have about one or two guys who I see that in, (Russell) Westbrook and maybe like a DeMarcus Cousins or something. But pretty much everybody else, it's a different type of attitude."