"It was about five of them" - Paul Pierce reveals which players he modeled his game around growing up

paul-pierce

Paul Pierce is one of the greatest offensive players in the NBA’s history. The forward totaled 26,397 points across his 19-year career in the league, which ranks 17th all-time and ahead of legends such as James Harden and Russell Westbrook.

Additionally, Pierce finished his NBA career with 3,180 points in the playoffs, the 23rd-most of any player in league history.

‘The Truth’ revealed his inspiration

Considering all of the success that Pierce enjoyed from a scoring standpoint during his basketball career, it shouldn’t come as a shock that he tried to model his game after very talented offensive players when he was growing up. Paul recently shared which players inspired him on ‘All The Smoke.’

“It was about five of them. I’m gonna tell you five of them, started with Steve Smith, Michigan State, Jimmy Jackson, Ohio State, Glenn Robinson — Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson — Purdue, Grant Hill, at Duke. Them was the dudes I watched closely. I taped all they games. I’m like, ‘Man,’ ’cause they was the small forwards. As I got older, they was the small forwards. So, Jimmy had the pull-up game; he was handled. Grant Hill was the point forward, because my senior year I became the point forward. And so I’m watching Steve Smith — point forward,” Pierce said.

Paul played three seasons of college basketball at the University of Kansas and put up 16.4 points per contest while shooting 48.1% from the field and 35.5% from 3-point range in 108 total games played with the Jayhawks.

“So, I’m watching all of them, and I’m emulating the things that they doing. Handling the ball, distributing, having the all — them was the guys I consider had all-around game. And I just tried to emulate they post up, jumper, inside, outside. And so them four player right there was the guys I most tried to emulate, and I was just like, ‘Man, shoot — they got it. They had it.’ And all them players was All Americans, all of them was top dogs at they school. So, I had them as the dudes that I always tried to emulate,” Paul added.

Taking a look at how the players mentioned fared in the NBA

Smith, Jackson, Robinson, and Hill had long and successful NBA careers that spanned 10-plus seasons after starring at the college level, but Grant stands out as the player with the best pro career of the four players.

Even though injuries hampered Grant throughout his NBA career, he was still a seven-time All-Star and five-time All-NBA selection and earned the 1994-95 iteration of the Rookie of the Year award. Without all the misfortunes, the ceiling for G-Hill’s career was unlimited.

When you look at the skill sets of all the guys Pierce mentioned, it’s not weird to see why Paul ultimately became such a lethal scorer and an NBA great.