Draymond ribs Pierce for playoff struggles before Big 3 arrived
Draymond Green isn't ready to let this one go.
Green fired once again at Paul Pierce after the two exchanged words (and tweets) in the Golden State Warriors' most recent smackdown of the Los Angeles Clippers.
The excitable Warriors sparkplug spoke with Marcus Thompson of the San Jose Mercury News on the latest episode of the Uninterrupted Podcast about the entire ordeal.
"I said what I had to say," Green said. "And he said no more after that. It’s nothing personal. I don’t hate Paul Pierce. But if you gone talk junk, I don’t hold anything back when I’m talking junk. If I’ma talk, I’ma talk. And I’ma take it where it needs to go."
An on-court camera captured an exchange in which Green ridiculed Pierce for expecting a farewell tour on par with the year-long circus of Kobe Bryant's final year. Pierce shot back on Twitter with a 3-1 joke. The score was settled at that point.
But Green couldn't resist another dig at the ex-Celtic.
"I hate when guys come up to me and say, 'You can't carry a team, you can't do this, you can't do that.' But how good were you at carrying a team? And by the way, it hasn't really been proven that I can't, or that I don't. It hasn't been proven.
"But it's proven with you, because you couldn't win. Just because you're scoring points that doesn't mean you were carrying the team. If you couldn't get anywhere, if you couldn't do nothing, where were you carrying them to?
"I think people tend to forget that and people will look at numbers, but sometimes they're empty stats if you're not really getting the job done. Maybe you're getting your numbers done, but you're not really getting the job done.
"Pierce had had an amazing career. He was a beast. But how far was he carrying those teams? If you weren’t carrying them that far, I guess we’re in the same boat."
However harsh, Green has a point. Pierce didn't have much help in the early years, but he did suffer a string of poor results in the playoffs with the Celtics - even missing out on the postseason altogether in 2006 and 2007 - before Allen and Kevin Garnett arrived to form the Big Three.
"People tend to forget he was struggling to to get to the playoffs, was on the trade block every year, then all of a sudden Ray Allen and KG showed up. Let’s not forget that," Green said.