![Paul Pierce FS1]()
Paul Pierce was "The Truth" and a wonderful basketball player in his day for the Boston Celtics. Oftentimes, major professional athletes can struggle to find their footing in their post-retirement lives —
just ask Shaq — but the
truth is, Pierce has been rather reckless with pristine opportunities that a lot of career media folks would kill for.
Pierce began his media journey at ESPN, and decided it'd be a good idea to go on IG live with exotic dancers with smoke and booze all around. The four-letter network fired him for that lapse in judgment, which Pierce continues to be defiant about to this day. He was "
literally having a good time" and still
wonders what he did wrong.
I mean hey, mistakes happen. You can imagine Pierce was used to a certain lifestyle, unspoken tolerance for certain behavior, and what have you when he was a superstar for one of pro sports' most iconic franchises. Plus, his prime was well before the prominence of social media and smartphones. Until Monday morning on the sports talk show
Undisputed, Pierce's pink slip-worthy offense at ESPN could be written off similar to
how the Denver Nuggets were mere days ago. Or as an admittedly pretty funny one-off blunder.
...It's just that, on
Undisputed this morning, Pierce once again showed off who he really is.
https://twitter.com/NobleNegroe/status/1790051674255499654
As somebody who grew up in Ohio as a Cavs fan, I'll admit I have some pretty hardwired mental programming to dislike Paul Pierce. It was frustrating as hell watching him barely able to jump, and yet still knocking off LeBron and his latest band of Cleveland scrubs in the playoffs more often than not. For me, there's such a thing as "sports hating" an athlete that has nothing to do with who they are as a person. Pierce was a mere "sports hatred" guy for me. A known severe scumbag like, say, Deshaun Watson, transcends that at-arms-length ire.
Anyway. Pierce has always just seemed a little mean-spirited to me. He comes across as bitter about LeBron's longevity and superior achievements whenever I see that topic broached. I don't hate Pierce. He's just not terribly likeable whatsoever. And he could give a f**k about what I or millions of other fans think, I know. Maybe he
should start caring, however, about how he's denting his legacy with a pretty disastrous run through the sports media landscape to date.
Reactions are pouring in over Pierce's brain-dead
Undisputed slip-up. Was it really worth it to shade Donte DiVincenzo like that, Paulie? Speculation is already flying around that you're gonna get fired...again.
https://twitter.com/WheelerJaylen/status/1790045530078265845
https://twitter.com/HaterReport_/status/1790062837651435833
https://twitter.com/ColeWorldSIMBA/status/1790045786253807895
https://twitter.com/CookedByRiley0/status/1790045856525095149
https://twitter.com/BB_Bundy/status/1790046453970219212
https://twitter.com/PerSources/status/1790058582735512021
https://twitter.com/DeerMuse/status/1790051785152794977
https://twitter.com/clarencehilljr/status/1790050018696536132
https://twitter.com/2Buddy/status/1790071133905010750
https://twitter.com/Goham_Quee/status/1790049428394397929
At the very least, Pierce has a suspension coming from Fox Sports.
Since he's clearly not afraid to mince words and has a reputation for "keeping it real" — once more, his nickname is "The Truth" — Pierce's authenticity and innate credibility as an ex-player may buy him enough goodwill. If the universal, somewhat arbitrary "three strikes and you're out" policy applies, though, it's safe to say Pierce has emphatically registered his second strike as of today.
