Former NBA journeyman argues that LeBron James is not a top-five player in NBA history

People who have followed the NBA for a long time might remember Paul Pierce. A Boston Celtics role player who is perhaps best known for literally pooping his pants during the NBA Finals is now for some reason a ubiquitous personality in NBA media, and when typing his name in on YouTube and seeing what the search bar suggests, it’s easy to see that he’s already established a brand:

Well, we can add another video to that third suggestion, because the former NBA journeyman who also played for the Wizards and Nets before getting ethered by Draymond Green for his bench-riding retirement tour with the LA Clippers was once again on camera saying dumb stuff on Wednesday:

The screengrabbed reactions of Pierce’s co-hosts to his latest hot take say more than my words ever could:

Image via ESPN

Jay Williams is a legend for his reaction especially.

Not that we need to spend too much time rebutting this obviously dumb take, but Pierce’s argument that James can’t be considered top-five because he... didn’t get drafted to a good organization?? ... is especially hilarious when considering that Pierce himself did very little of consequence until his general manager got him two stars (Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) whose coattails he could ride to his one and only ring, and then Pierce attempted to build another superteam with the Brooklyn Nets through working with the Celtics to get himself traded there (they were eventually spanked by James’ Miami Heat in the playoffs).

We probably always should have expected that the finale of “The Last Dance” would lead to the premiere of “people known for being wrong a lot say dumb stuff about LeBron” week, so maybe Pierce making some headlines here shouldn’t be surprising. All I know is that between Pierce and the guy who broke up the Jordan Bulls arguing that James isn’t the best ever, James’ GOAT argument may never be stronger than it is right now.

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