Paul Pierce is one of the greatest players in Boston Celtics history, and for good reason. After all, he did help bring home Boston’s 17th NBA championship. That said, it wasn’t all highs during his time in the white and green. There was almost a point in time when Pierce wanted to leave Boston to team up with another superstar.
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The 2007 NBA offseason was extremely important for the Celtics, especially since the previous year was a disaster. Boston was the worst team in the Eastern Conference with a 24-58 record and there was a point where they had lost 18 games in a row.
Pierce wasn’t a fan of the direction the team was going. If the Celtics were gearing for a rebuild, he knew the writing was on the wall.
“I wanted to go to Dallas at that point,” Pierce revealed on No Fouls Given. “That was the year Dallas lost [to the Warriors in the first round]. We ended up with the fifth pick, which was so disappointing. I was just like, ‘I know I’m getting traded now.'”
The Dallas Mavericks were one of the best teams in the NBA that season, but they were also fresh off an extremely disappointing season. They lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round, becoming the third top seed in NBA history to lose to an eighth seed.
And Pierce knew that the Mavericks were missing a player with his skill set. So, once the draft lottery came around and the Celtics fell a few spots to the fifth pick, he believed his time in Boston was coming to an end. The front office, however, had other plans.
“We used that pick to get Ray Allen, used some other pieces to get KG, and the rest is history,” Pierce said.
In the matter of a single offseason, the Celtics went from the worst team in the East to the best. Danny Ainge’s trades for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett drastically shifted the trajectory of the franchise. They would go on to win the 2008 NBA championship, and the idea of joining the Mavericks quickly evaporated from Pierce’s mind.
Pierce was excellent alongside a dynamic big man in Kevin Garnett. That only raises question marks regarding how successful a pairing of Pierce and Dirk Nowitzki would’ve been. At least the Mavericks didn’t miss out on much as they would eventually capture their long-coveted title in 2011. Regardless, this remains one of the biggest what-ifs in NBA history.
