Will there be Paul Pierce sightings at Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse this season?
.JPG "Kansas Jayhawks forward Paul Pierce (left) and coach Roy Williams at Allen Fieldhouse in March 1997.")
Now that he’s not quite as busy as he was during his 19-year NBA career, Paul Pierce plans on making some trips to Lawrence, specifically Allen Fieldhouse, during the next stage of his life.
“I actually talked with Coach Self yesterday. I told him I want to come check out some games this year,” former Kansas forward Pierce said Monday, a day after current Kansas coach Bill Self met with the former KU and NBA great before Pierce’s National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony at The College Basketball Experience.
“I think it’d be awesome just (to) be a supporter since I retired, to go catch some games in Lawrence. That’d be my way of giving back. I mean we’ve had a lot of great players that played for the Jayhawks. I just think it’s only right we come back certain times and support,” Pierce added.
Pierce — he was inducted into the college hall with the late Len Bias, plus UCLA’s David Greenwood, Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins, Ohio State’s Jim Jackson, North Carolina’s Antawn Jamison, and coaches Rick Byrd and Tom Penders — spoke with the media as part of a teleconference with some members of the Class of 2021 Monday.
Pierce, 44, who retired from the NBA in 2017, provided an update on his immediate future.
“Well, I’ve been working on some content with Showtime that I’ll be able to produce this year — some basketball content — me and my good friend Kevin Garnett. We signed a deal with Showtime. I’ll be doing some things with DraftKings. I’ll still be involved in the game of basketball at the NBA level,” Pierce said.
“It’s something that will always be part of my life. I think we will be rolling out some podcast content here pretty soon. Along with spending a lot of time with my kids. You miss so many years when you play so many years in the NBA with your kids growing up. I want to spend a lot of time with them and help them grow up also,” the Inglewood, California native added.
Pierce, who played at KU three seasons, brought up the name of his friend, former NBA teammate Garnett, when asked what players miss when they do not attend college for at least a year.
“Prime example is K.G. He is one of the first ones to do it (head straight from high school to pros) and one of my closest friends. The thing he missed out I believe from college and I tell people this: you have a lot of great players that went from high school to pro, but you miss out on that last chance at being a kid, establishing relationships you can probably have for life whether it’s three, four, five years, however many years you have in college,” said Pierce. KU’s 10th-leading scorer of all time played for the Jayhawks from 1995-98.
“You jump from high school to a pro career whether it’s in sports or business, it’s right to adulthood. At least mentally it allowed me to prepare for adulthood moving forward. Whether I was able to go in the work force or able to go pro and play basketball for a good portion of my life, it prepared me mentally and physically, understanding, ‘This is your last chance at being a kid, so enjoy it,’’’ Pierce stated.
Pierce spoke of being a Kansas Jayhawk on Monday, saying, “the only regret is just not bringing home a national championship because we probably had three great teams I played on during those three great years at Kansas.”
He added: “The thing about Kansas basketball, it’s not your normal college fans or normal college program. Those fans stick with you forever. A lot of times walking the streets or in a mall, you have people walk past you and say, ‘Rock Chalk.’ It lets you know how big Jayhawk nation is. They’ve been able to follow my career all the way through college through pro. It’s like its own community.
“You can say one simple word, ‘Rock Chalk.’ And everybody knows what that means. I don’t know of another college program that has anything like that,” Pierce noted.
Sunday’s induction into the college hall completes a whirlwind for Pierce. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, primarily for his NBA accomplishments, on Sept. 11.
“It’s been surreal knowing that I’ve been able to leave my mark on the game of basketball pretty much at every level,” Pierce said Monday. “Growing up as a kid, I don’t know how much you really think about it. You work as much as you can, as hard as you can and at the end of the day see where you end up. To be recognized at the college level and pro level I believe is a testament to hard work I’ve been able to put in. I’m thankful to the coaches and my teammates I had around me through my career.”
