Throughout their playing careers, Paul Pierce and Dwyane Wade have engaged in heated on-court battles. Yet, Pierce decided to continue the warfare by claiming that if he had the teammates Wade had, he would have had a more decorated career than the Miami Heat icon. This sparked a lengthy debate among critics that D-Wade ended during an interview with TMZ.
"I'm a high road kind of person, man. I let my game speak for itself," Wade responded after being asked if he felt he was better than Pierce. "One thing I won't do is put another Black man down... He's an amazing player. I got a lot of respect for him. And like I said, I'm going to clap for him when he goes into the Hall of Fame."
Wade's response displays that his household is a united front as they echo his wife's initial sentiments. Once Pierce's comments hit headlines, Gabrielle Union took to Twitter, where she scolded Pierce for using his platform to diminish another accomplished Black person.
"This [Paul Pierce] thing is wrong on many obvious levels," Union tweeted. "But what I find most troublesome is this idea of a man trying to diminish another man that looks like him, was raised like him, in order to shine a tad brighter. Shit isnt entertaining, it's sad."
While Union elected to turn the other cheek, Wade's son Zaire fired shots at Pierce in defense of his father.
"I don't want to hear it," Zaire wrote on Instagram. "Dude player 19 years and won 1 ring. Not to mention we did knock them out of the playoffs right? Oh aight. Now that's 'The Truth.'"
Things only continued to get worse for Pierce. Over the next few months, his hot take created more backlash. Fans around the country would cheer "Paul Pierce Sucks" as Wade finished out his farewell tour. And though D-Wade decided to extinguish the beef, the universal reaction to his comments further solidifies Draymond Green's parting words to Pierce: "They don't love you like that... You thought you was Kobe?"
