Paul Pierce has had a beef with LeBron James since his rookie season

Kendrick Perkins shared the incredible backstory into why Paul Pierce and LeBron James have hated each other over the years.

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Future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce made headlines on Wednesday after he proceeded to leave off LeBron James from his top-five NBA players of all-time.

Instead of including James, Pierce went on to name Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant as his top-five players in history. Of course, the list is strictly in the opinion of Pierce but social media erupted in anger that he excluded James.

As it turns out, there may be a reason why he didn’t include James.

Kendrick Perkins, a former Boston Celtics teammate of Pierce’s and current analyst on ESPN, shared the incredible backstory into the drama between Pierce and James, which started in James’ rookie year. Perkins believes that beef is why Pierce excluded James on his list.

We’re playing in Columbus, Ohio, my rookie season against the Cleveland Cavaliers. When LeBron was coming into the league, he was getting a lot of heat from players: ‘Oh, he’s not going to do that to us. The Chosen One, wait until he plays against grown men.’

So, his first preseason game is against Paul Pierce. Paul is talking noise to the bench. He’s talking big noise to the Cavs’ bench. They’re sitting over there, Bron and them they are all sitting over there. Paul actually spits over there at the bench. The ultimate disrespect! It ends up turning up. I mean after the game, both teams were meeting in the back. Guys were ready to fight. We had to hold people back. It went up from there.

Ever since that moment, LeBron James and Paul Pierce hated each other. They don’t speak to each other. I think Paul’s list is more personal toward LeBron because there is no way in hell that you could say LeBron James is not top-five. You might not have him as your GOAT but to say that he’s not top-five that’s just crazy and I love Paul, but I think that’s more personal than anything.

Pierce leaving James off of his all-time list due to a personal beef is nothing new. Players throughout history have typically shied away from honoring their peers that they may have had a history with. As “The Last Dance” documentary detailed, Michael Jordan had several issues with players over the years that still carry on to this day.

To make matters worse, Pierce went on Twitter and defended his top-five list, stating the players he named were parts of dynasties. He then went on to name Shaquille O’Neal sixth on his list and Tim Duncan seventh.

Pierce may very well be heading off to the Hall of Fame but the 10-time NBA All-Star needs to get over that bad blood with James and give him his proper due that is warranted.

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