Why did Pierce fall so bad in the draft?

[sp6r=underrated]

I tried googling this but I didn't find any clear answer.

Came to my attention with Dirk's retirement. I knew they were in the same class but memory was crap and assumed he was a top 2 or 3 pick. He had a very good college career at a top level program. He was a high level in High School. Guys like that normally go at the top of the draft. I was viewing the old draft clips and even the commentators were surprised.

Obviously in retrospect him falling was monumentally dumb. I understand Dirk going low as international players were new back then but Pierce with his pedigree without the benefit of hindsight should have been higher than Raef. JFC.

Is it known why he fell?

[Waider]

I'm not sure why he fell but I believe the Celtics had heavily scouted Dirk on the sly and were set on drafting him. Fortunately when he went at #9 the Celtics were very lucky Pierce had slid.

[chakdaddy]

I recall him being viewed as safe but slightly unspectacular and unathletic. Dumb gms went for flashier, riskier picks with perceived high upside. Case in point olowokandi .

[Celtics_History_Lesson]

Stupidity and trade agreements?

A complete expert on drafts, and had Brad Miller late first round in the mock draft, maybe Rashard Lewis too, and Pierce and LaFrentz were both listed as possible top overall picks.

Pre-injury LaFrentz, he got hurt a month into his NBA career, was a sight to see. If he arrived in the NBA now, with hundreds of blocks and hundreds of 3s a season, he would get MVP votes. Pierce was on his team, and was also amazing in college. "Kandi Man", that was insanity. He played at a small school where his opponents were 6-4. Bibby was a solid option at the time, for the top pick, but lacked superstar ability.

The trade agreements? Warriors, Raptors, Bucks, Mavs, all locked into their moves.

The stupidity, as well as just being the Clippers but that was expected and always happened those times, there was Sacramento and their obsession with weirdo Jason Williams and Larry Brown who went crazy insane over Larry Hughes and also gave him one of those moronic "draft promises".

Bucks wanted inside help, bulk and strength, so they locked into Tractor. Mavs laughed at them, turned drafting him for the Bucks into Dirk and also trading for Steve Nash. Raptors did their trickery to save some money, and they and the Warriors traded UNC players.

Those trades kept teams from grabbing Pierce. Already locked into Jamsion, Carter, Tractor, Dirk. Denver made a solid pick, maybe Vancouver too, while the others had their guys and were fixated with them, instead of jumping at the chance when Pierce was still there. Vlade, Webber, Stojakovic, Pierce, Christie, the Kings would have been very good with Pierce. Iverson and Pierce, the problem would have been Iverson who didn't like other stars getting the ball.

When Pierce slid, he became angry and vengeful. He promised to punish those who did not pick him. When Rashard Lewis slid, and his Houston team passed on him three times, he cried. Both must have been good options for reactions, they would later win championships.

Going into the draft, expected Doleac, Keon Clark or Harpring to be a Celtic. It was obviously a better result than that, and even Pitino couldn't mess that up.

Clippers should have picked Pierce. Vancouver at two, they needed to sell tickets, so Vince would have made sense. Grizzlies picking Bibby, and then dumping Antonio Daniels who was their pick 4 the previous season hurt the franchise, and then Steve Francis closed it down later. Bucks really did need a power forward to win a title, and they had someone at their spot who would have made their team so high-scoring they may not have lost. Cassell, Ray Allen, G Robinson, Dirk, only one basketball may have hurt them. Pierce was better than them all, and he knew it then, and Celtics fans knew it then, and Kansas fans knew it then.

A fun draft slide, for the Celtics, and there have been others. The Danny Granger/Gerald Green slide, fun. Robert Williams, fun. Sullinger, fun at the time. Even Joe Johnson was a bit of a slide, not expected to be there, as other teams reached for DeSagana Diop. The Pierce draft slide was swell, maybe today's equivalent would be RJ Barrett going to Boston at pick 14.

[jfs1000d]

The draft kind of fell that way with the Mavs trade for Dirk. We were eying Dirk if you can believe it.

Think about Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison also in this draft.

Also, take a ook at Dallas. Trade Tractor Traylor for Dirk and Pat Garrity. Then turned Garrity and two other players into Steve Nash.

got Dirk and Steve nash on the same night.

[kuclas]

I’m a Kansas fan (and sixers!) But Paul pierce was my favorite nba player for his entire career. I was so happy he won a title.

I went to KU same times as pierce/lafrenz etc. Lafrenz was projected as the higher nba ceiling. Injures in his career ruined his potential.

But pierce problem was this (in my opinion)

1. While a gifted scoring machine at KU. Many felt he didn’t have elite athletic ability. Some thought he may have to play the 2 in nba cause they didn’t think at 6 7 he was tall enough to play forward.

I knew carter would like go ahead of pierce. But once I saw Jamison go ahead in the 4 slot. It’s like wtf. Carter will go next since carter was the one with the elite jumping ability.

So I think pierce lack or perceived lack of elite athleticism hurt him.

I certainly didn’t expect him to drop further than 6 though.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Pierce was projected as a top 3 pick and didnt work out with many teams accordingly, IIRC. Other teams projected him as gone and made draft promises based on that [Philly promised Larry Hughes, causing Larry Brown much pain when Pierce started falling].

It was a fluke, similar to how Justise Winslow was once projected to go 4 and somehow fell to 10.

[Captain_Caveman]

Rumors were flying on that day about him having bad knees.

Wonder who did that? lol

[sam_I_am]

My impression at the time was that it was due to Kansas underacheiving and his underwhelming play in NCAA tournament. Also, it was a loaded draft and Clippers wasted #1 pick Olowakandi.

[Geech]

Perceived as less athletic, an underachiever, not as driven, he was a Junior, and that's how the picks fell in regards to needs. The strategy back then was to fully fill out a traditional team with Centers being the hardest and most valuable piece to add vs. taking best available and building a Warriors type lineup.

[Fencer reregistered]

Factors I recall are mainly ones cited above.

-- Clips made the idiot choice of trying to get a traditional franchise center at #1.
-- Pierce and Lafrentz were both (deservedly) rated super-high, yet Kansas did badly in the tournament (as it so often does).
-- Larry Hughes got a promise.
-- There WERE a lot of good prospects in the draft. Of the guys taken top 10, only Kandi and Traylor were truly bad choices; other misfires were just a matter of it having been possible to do a lot better than a team actually did.
-- There were lots of doubts as to how good a scorer Pierce would be in the NBA.

[Fencer reregistered]

Also: White Chocolate was good enough to outdo Pierce in the rookie-of-the-year voting, and obviously had a lot of ticket-selling potential as well.

[Big Joke Line]

Biggest reason no one has mentioned yet is that he was viewed as out of shape by some because of his body type. And what goes along with being perceived as out of shape.

[Curmudgeon]

A better question is why Rashard Lewis fell to #32. The players taken after Pierce and before Lewis were mediocre at best.

[canman1971]

A better question is why Rashard Lewis fell to #32. The players taken after Pierce and before Lewis were mediocre at best.

For the most part, in one way or another, it happens every year.

[sully00]

I think the biggest issue for him was that he went back to school. He would have gone 3 to Boston with no doubt in '97 Pitino was begging him and Raef to declare. Him and Raef were expected to dominate going back to school and they were plenty good but they weren't dominant and Pierce looked more like a 4 than a 2. But all of the wheeling and dealing and backdoor deals in the draft played into it. Teams were drafting the player they knew another team wanted so they could extort them for cash or make them eat a contract for them. I am positive if all the GM's handed in their boards they would have had Pierce in their top 5 it just worked out that enough of them had one more guy in their top 4 that was still on the board.

[Bad-Thoma]

Why? Obviously because

Watch on YouTube

[Curmudgeon]

If God were a Celtics fan we would have had Nowitzski, not Pierce.

[the sea duck]

If God were a Celtics fan we would have had Nowitzski, not Pierce.

They won the same number of championships, with Pierce's coming before Dirk's. So I'm just fine with having Pierce instead of Dirk.

[celticfan42487]

If God were a Celtics fan we would have had Nowitzski, not Pierce.

They won the same number of championships, with Pierce's coming before Dirk's. So I'm just fine with having Pierce instead of Dirk.

Yeah and Pierce is easier to build around back then with Dirk's softness on everything except for fadeaways.

Dirk is dramatically overrated at the moment but he's not really much better than a Pierce type of player at best. And I think there's plenty of reasons to believe Pierce was a better player than Dirk overall in their times.