It might surprise some fans of the Boston Celtics to know that it took several years of playing basketball before legendary Celtics small forward Paul Pierce truly realized the NBA was in his future.
Unlike many of his peers who were being groomed for the league early in life on the AAU circuit, Pierce didn’t start to take off as a basketball prospect until he was nearly done with high school, as he related in a video produced for the ESPN show “The Jump.” Airing in the summer of 2020 as the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 gripped the world, the former Boston champion opened up about his path to the NBA.
“I was like a late bloomer select around 11th 12th grader when I started to be one of the best players in the country,” recalled the Truth.
