Is Paul Pierce considering retirement amid his struggles this season?
The writing isn’t on the wall for Paul Pierce just yet, but the 38-year-old vet can start to sense that the end is near.
“Right now, I’m year by year,” Pierce told the Orange County Register on Wednesday. “Like I reevaluated what I was going to do this summer, I will do the same thing next summer. It will be possibly that I don’t play next year, but that’s something I’ll evaluate with myself and my family.”
Even if Pierce had decided he wanted to retire after this season, though, he doesn’t think he would get the grandiose farewell tour -- filled with highlight videos, shoes and snakes -- that has followed Kobe Bryant’s final season.
"I doubt it," Pierce told the Los Angeles Times.
Pierce is enduring the worst stretch of basketball of his career. He’s averaging career-lows in nearly every statistical category -- including minutes (17.5) and points (4.1) -- except for free-throw percentage, though he’s attempted only 1.0 free throw per game.
Part of the appeal of bringing Pierce to the Clippers, besides his experience, leadership and championship swagger, was his shooting ability. Pierce is a career 37.0 percent 3-point shooter, and shot 38.9 percent with the Washington Wizards last season. This season, he’s shooting only 29.7 percent from the field and, even worse, 24.2 percent on 3-pointers.
Doc Rivers, who is now in his 10th season coaching Pierce, isn’t worried about the aging forward’s shooting slump.
“It’s not going in,” Rivers said. “I’m not a shooting coach. But I want him to keep shooting it the way he’s shot it for 17 years, and eventually, it’ll go in. I really believe that.”
This isn’t the first time Pierce has struggled in the regular season. Pierce got off to a slow start with the Washington Wizards last season, shooting 39.8 percent from the field in November before regaining his stroke and shooting 44.7 percent for the season. In the playoffs, Pierce was the Wizards’ go-to guy in crunch time, making a game-winning shot and barely missing two others (he made one that didn’t count because he got it off too late).
According to another former coach of his, Pierce tends to ramp up as the season progresses.
"He'll be there at the finish line and he's going to help his team win," said Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd, who coached Pierce for one season with the Brooklyn Nets. "I saw it up close in Brooklyn and I've seen it as a player, he's not one that maybe always starts off fast."
If this is it, though, and Pierce can’t bounce back from his early-season decline, the 10-time All-Star says he has no problem accepting his limitations and strongly would considering retirement.
“You just listen to your body, you go through the 82-game grind, how physically and mentally you’re invested into it,” Pierce said. “I think the older you get and the less and less you’re able to do things that you could do before, you start thinking about maybe it’s that time.”
