BOSTON — Celtics owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca rarely take the podium. If there’s a big new hiring, signing, or trade acquisition, they’ll grace the stage to share their excitement.
But when Jrue Holiday was unveiled as the latest star to join the Boston Celtics, they were downright giddy. They could hardly contain how thrilling it was watching Holiday swallow up Jaylen Brown on a fast break. They could hardly finish their sentences, wrought with anticipation for something they hadn’t seen in a long, long time.
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“Paul Pierce turned to us and said he’s never seen an NBA practice in his whole entire career that they went that hard, that fast, for that long,” Pagliuca said. “He was really smiling as well.”
Pierce was the captain of a team that had shouting matches and fights in practice all the time. He shared the floor with Kevin Garnett, the man whose photo sits in the dictionary under the word intense. So why was he so taken aback?
“It’s the intensity, and these guys are coming in with high expectations and they understand that,” Pierce said at Celtics practice Thursday. “I mean, the practices are intense, you can see how hard they’re going. Not as much talking as our team. We had a loud team. You can just see in the habits, before, during and after. You see guys getting extra shots up, in the weight room, you can just feel it in the air.”
But wait, why was Paul Pierce there? From Pierce to Eddie House to Antoine Walker, there were plenty of former Celtics in the building Thursday after an email hit their inbox.
“I sent an email out to all the Celtics’ former players because I felt like it’s important that we share in this experience together,” coach Joe Mazzulla said. “They started the tradition, they kept it going, and now it’s our responsibility as an organization to keep it alive. But when you don’t see them all the time, you don’t get that connection to the past. The only past we have is the banners alone. The past should be the banners, but it should (also) be the people.”
Year 7 pic.twitter.com/CXi3E4jVOZ
— Jayson Tatum (@jaytatum0) October 4, 2023
Jayson Tatum is way ahead of him. When Tatum was working out in L.A. during the summer, his new assistant coach and former Pierce teammate Sam Cassell came out to join him. When it turned out Tatum was doing his strength training at Pierce’s old gym, he decided to tag along and join in for the summer program.
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“I’m just here to support and be along for the ride,” Pierce said.
Tatum welcomed having the OG around, the last great wing to carry the Celtics to a title. In the summer of 2007, Danny Ainge put the Big 3 together to give Pierce the stars around him to finally prove whether or not he had championship mettle. Tatum has been getting close seemingly every year of his career, but now Brad Stevens has given him what is essentially a Big 4.
So to be the best, you have to learn from the best.
“He’s seen it all from being a lottery team to losing in the finals to winning an NBA championship,” Tatum said. “So just the insight and those little nuggets, I guess, of information. Stories about the ’08 team and things that they did that may have helped win a championship, may have had nothing to do with it. But just being able to hear those things is cool.”
Pierce told him about handling the pressure and expectations of a superteam. Tatum would ask what Kevin Garnett was like in the locker room. Anything to soak up the knowledge and experience.
“Oh yeah, of course I’m gonna share some stories,” Pierce said.
While Pierce saw so many years of rebuild and mediocrity before reinventing himself on the 2008 title team, Tatum has missed the conference finals only twice since he entered the NBA. While the Celtics have been vying for the top since Tatum got there, he and Brown have steadily ascended and taken over the franchise.
“I don’t really have the same route that he’s been through. He’s been through the struggle, our team was put together and we won instantly,” said Pierce. “So they’re going like the traditional route to where you have your bumps in the road and you figure it out, and have to get over the hump. I’m sure he’s (hungrier) than ever because he’s felt what it tastes like to be in the finals, he’s felt what it tastes like to be so close. So I just tell him just understand that it’s a long year and it’s hard to win.”
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Pierce was thrilled when Mazzulla invited him to be around the team, as it reminded him of how things were when he was coming up. Tommy Heinsohn was there every night and would often sit players down for deep conversations. John Havlicek, Bob Cousy and even Bill Russell would stop by to share their wisdom.
“It just brings a certain energy to the building whenever I saw those guys in practice or at the game,” Pierce said. “So I think it kind of continues the brotherhood. It’s all part of our culture and that is something that the Celtics have always been about.”
After practice Thursday, Pierce, House, Cassell and some Celtics assistants held a 3-point contest that featured as many F-bombs as shots going in. A day earlier, Derrick White joked that the gym is a lot quieter without locker-room favorites Marcus Smart and Grant Williams around. But you couldn’t tell Thursday.
“It’s been fun. It’s been intense. It’s been a joy to watch, just seeing the guys get together the first few days,” Pierce said. “You know, it’s bringing back a lot of memories about the first few days, the struggle, and just starting a journey.”
It’s not like the Celtics are that far from the top. Every year, they’ve been at the precipice and then some fundamental flaw has held them back by a narrow margin. But the journey starts from the beginning each year and they have to do things a little bit better in a lot of different ways to be the team they thought they were last year.
And Pierce plans to stick around for the ride.
“Everybody loves Paul,” Tatum said. “It’s great having the older guys around, just their presence and being around, being able to talk to them, being able to see them. It’s great. I love having him around, and everybody else feels the same way.”
(Photo: Winslow Townson / USA Today)
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