The list of Paul Pierce’s career accolades is a long one. A 10-time All-Star and four-time All-NBA selection, he won the 2008 NBA championship and was named Finals MVP as his Celtics beat the hated Lakers in six games. He was one of the best two-way forwards in the league for more than a decade, and after his career was done, he was named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team and elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Pierce has many accomplishments, but none are more impressive than the fact that he once played in all 82 games after being stabbed 11 times right before training camp. This was way back in September of 2000 as he was entering his third year in the league, but he went on to average 25.3 points per game and finish 13th in MVP voting while never missing a single contest.
Pierce was this week’s guest on Byron Scott’s Fast Break, and with 25 years of perspective, he spoke about the scariest night of his life.
“Being in the NBA, young, black, successful. Got some money, people always gonna be watching you,” he said. “I’m feeling like I’m on top of the world … You feel invincible. But you gotta understand that you’re not.”
Pierce said that he talked to the wrong girl in the club and got jumped for it, and didn’t even fully realize what had happened or how many attackers there had been until afterwards.
“I didn’t even know how many guys it was until the news came out about it and the trial and guys were getting arrested. I remember just fighting for my life,” he said.
Pierce told Scott that he had never even been in a fight in a club, let alone one this serious. When it was all over, he had been stabbed 11 times and been hit over the head with a bottle, but he survived because a hospital was close by and he was wearing a leather jacket that stopped the cuts from going too deep.
The incident affected Pierce deeply, and made him rethink how he needed to act now that he was a famous basketball player.
“Your life flashes before your eyes when you go through a situation like that,” he admitted.
“You don’t realize it until you go through it, when you’re on top of the world, how many people it affects. When you start seeing the letters coming in and the phone calls, and it’s just like, ‘Man, I’m too important to too many people right now, I can’t be out here in the streets like this no more,” added a still remorseful Pierce.
The Celtics had already known too much tragedy thanks to the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, but thankfully Pierce avoided a similar fate. He ended up going down in history as an all-time great Celtic, while also providing a valuable lesson to young athletes everywhere.
