In this episode of the Draymond Green Show, former Celtics star Paul Pierce reflects on his late‑career move to Boston and the formation of the Celtics’ Big Three—Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and himself. Pierce explains that his primary motivation was simply to get a shot at a championship, describing how the addition of Allen and Garnett turned his role from a lone scorer into a piece of a larger, winning puzzle. He recounts the team’s success, the impact of injuries, and how the chemistry with a young Rajon Rondo—who earned the trust of veterans through mentorship from veteran point guard Tiki Barrett—was crucial. Pierce argues that the Celtics’ experiment demonstrated that assembling multiple super‑stars could work, paving the way for later super‑team constructions like LeBron James’ and Kevin Durant’s collaborations. He also touches on the broader locker‑room culture, mentioning role players such as Tony Allen, Leon Powe, Eddie House, and others, and emphasizes the camaraderie off the court. The conversation is interspersed with a DraftKings sponsorship read.
Chapters
What's up everybody? Welcome to the Draymond Green Show YouTube channel. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you like the post that you love, but you can get everything the Draymond Green Show right on our YouTube channel. So make sure you subscribe, check that out. Thank you. Then y'all reach a point where it's not going great. Doc's essentially about to be on his way out.
About to get fired. They was calling for him.
Like, Doc's about to be on his way out. And from what I've heard, you're possibly gonna get outta there soon too. Just for your own career.
Yeah.
Y'all, you then find out that y'all about to get Ray Allen, y'all about to get KG. What was your thoughts? Were you worried about sacrificing shots? Because for so long now you've been here, you've been the man, you do what you wanna do. Or was that for you like, "This is my chance to win and become a Boston Celtics legend." How did you accept that as that starts to happen?
Man, it was just like, yeah, I wanted to say, I just, all I ever wanted to do was win in Boston, man. And I was just like, all I ever wanted, Draymond, was just a shot. Just a shot. You know, I'm envious of all these other great wing players. I'm watching Cole win it all. I'm watching, Guys like Manu Ginobili win it all. Guys in my position, you know, having success in the playoffs. And I just said, man, I'm looking at these other players play with other great players.
Mm-hmm.
I had to, I got a chance to play with Antoine Walker. We went to the Eastern Conference Finals and we traded. We this close. So I'm like, damn, we traded. We running backwards. All I ever want is a shot. As a competitor, that's all you ever want. Just gimme a shot. With another great player and let me see if we can pull something off. And so when that happened, dog, Ray came and I was like, oh, okay, I'm not getting traded. I'm in this for the long run. Then we get KG. That's all I asked for. I've been over here during the good years, the bad years, just gimme a shot. You know what I'm saying? You got D-Wade, get to play with Bron and Shaq and all these other great players, get the team up. Because you can't win by yourself in this league. You need other great players. We all know this.
Can't do it.
I don't care how great you are, you need another great player. And that's all I asked for. So once I got them, even though we only won one title, we was hurt the next year. And then the following year we went back to the finals, played the Lakers again, 2010. We were 12 minutes away with the lead. I'm happy I got a shot. I could've won two. If KG don't get hurt, we was on pace to win 70 games the next year. And so I'm just thankful that I even got a shot later in my career, 'cause if we would've got together when we was young, boy, we would've looked like y'all Warriors, man, I'm telling you. I'm telling you, we would've looked like y'all. We was together at 26, 27, it would've been a problem.
Yes, sir.
Man, let me ask you though. No, do you feel like—
Go ahead.
Do you feel like we started that big super team thing?
For sure.
For sure?
100%.
So we was the influence on Bron and then KD and all of that and everybody coming together?
Well, I think also a thing that it did was it allowed you to see that it was possible. So we had like, before that we didn't know this was possible. All of a sudden it's now you, Ray Allen, and KG.
Right.
No one ever even thought of these things before. Like, how is this even possible? And so I think that opened up the world of possibilities. Now you're like, ah, okay, I can do this now.
I can do this now.
Yeah, like, oh, we can put this together now. You know, and so I think, When that happened, everybody's just like, okay, now you can put these pieces into place because I've seen it happen. You know what I'm saying? And I think another thing, see, everybody always talk about you, Ray, and KG, which by the way, should be talked about. But nobody ever talk about y'all had a great young point guard in Rondo.
Ooh, boy.
Like, how important was Rondo to what y'all was doing?
Man, Rondo was so big to everything because he was the youngest And they wasn't sure at first if Rondo can be the point guard with us. 'Cause he was only in like his second or third year. Second, you know, he was in his second year.
Yeah.
So it was a lot of talks about maybe trading Rondo. Do we need an older point guard? I was like, nah, this, I saw his rookie year. I was like, this dude gonna be nice. He showed me flashes his rookie year. And I was like, oh, he actually the perfect guard for us because he's a pass-first guard.
Yeah.
So I was rocking with him. He was picking up full court, he played D and he always made the right decisions. IQ was off the charts. And see, that's the thing about Rondo, more than his skill is IQ. And you saw that. And just to add that pass first point guard who was mature for his age, that was the perfect storm for us.
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Yeah. As far as demeanor, like, you're an alpha. KG's an alpha. Oh man, I don't know. I don't know Ray that well, but—
He like, I would say he like more of a sniper.
Yeah, like quiet, like I'll get you. —but I'm gonna go under the radar with mine a little bit more.
Yeah, but he a sniper.
How did a young Rondo handle that? Because Rondo is like, Rondo tough as shit.
He an alpha. He a 100% alpha.
Mm-hmm. How did he adjust to that where he's an alpha and he's the point guard running the show, but like you got these OGs in here. Like how was that adjustment for Rondo?
You know what Rondo did was probably the best thing he did. You know, as a young player, when you come in, and I always say this to young players, you know, find a vet that you can come up under, you know, that can show you, get a good vet though, that you can come up under, listen to what he gotta say, and he gonna show you the way. First thing he did, he went to Ticket University. He checked into Ticket University, got up under his wing, and that's where he started developing that mentality. He went right to Ticket. Tiki took him under his wing every day, and Rondo here, every day in the locker room, on the court. And that's why you see the— he had it in him, but it just started growing. It started growing. And it was hard on him because as a scorer, as a guy want the ball, you know, I'm on him. Like, you know, bring it this way.
Mm-hmm.
But he was so smart. And the point guard is the hardest position where you gotta distribute to, guys who need the ball, but he handled it good though. He went under Ticket, developed the mentality, even it was nice, me and him might argue. He stood on his business and I'm like, "All right, I respect it, you saw something different." "All right, cool." And we moved on from it. And it was just the perfect for him to just be under that. And now as Rondo grew and you saw his mentality, he quiet too, but don't push his button. Don't push his button, you know? So he— Mm-hmm. He a Alpatudo, but we had a lot of 'em though. Perk, Leon Powe, Eddie House, Posey, Big Baby. I mean, if we got into a team fight, I'm not sure anybody wanted to see us. We had so many big dogs. Tony Allen, damn, I forgot about T.A., damn.
T.A.
Damn. But like, yeah, that was the funnest time. We all kicked it. We all kicked it. We all went out together. We all ate together. We just did everything together, you know? So it made it fun. And, you know, I appreciate them dudes and Rondo and all them. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
