Retiring Pierce takes a swat at Nets

Reminds Brooklyn How Much It Gave up for Him in 2013 Blockbuster

May 17, 2017 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Paul Pierce helped the Nets win their only playoff series since arriving in Brooklyn back in 2014. He also was part of a deal that sent the Nets’ first-round picks to Boston in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018. AP Photo by Frank Franklin II

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Four years and two weeks ago, Paul Pierce delivered what this paper dubbed “The Swat Heard ‘Round the World,” a blocked shot in Toronto that nailed down the Brooklyn Nets’ first, and thus far only, playoff series win since their much-ballyhooed arrival in our fair borough.

On Tuesday night, the soon-to-be-officially-retired 39-year-old forward took a not-so-veiled slap at the franchise that gave up a huge chunk of its future to acquire him and fellow Boston Celtics great Kevin Garnett back in June of 2013.

“And look what I leave behind for the Celts on my way out #1 pick,” Pierce tweeted moments after Boston won the NBA’s annual draft lottery, thanks to one of the many picks they acquired from the league-worst Nets in what is likely to go down as one of the worst trades in the sport’s history.

Ouch!

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to play out like this.

When Pierce, Garnett and Jason Terry — remember him? — showed up in Brooklyn one month after then-Nets general manager Billy King mortgaged the foreseeable future for their services, the move was designed to get the franchise back to the NBA Finals for the first time since they made back-to-back trips there in 2002-03.

Brooklyn was coming off a painful Game 7 home loss to Chicago in the first round of the playoffs, putting a damper on an otherwise inspiring inaugural 2012-13 campaign in Downtown Brooklyn.

King, as prodded by billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov, was going for it.

He gave up the Nets’ first-round picks in 2014, 2016 and 2018, and the right for Boston to swap first-rounders with Brooklyn in 2017.

But none of that seemed to matter when Pierce and Garnett showed up here.

“We are championship-driven,” Pierce insisted at the trio’s introductory press conference that July in the bowels of the Barclays Center.

“We made a lot of money in our careers,” the future Hall of Famer and former Finals MVP added. “We have won a number of awards. At this point right now, we are about winning a championship. Brooklyn gives us the best opportunity.”

Teaming with Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, whom King dubbed the best backcourt in the NBA, and 7-foot center Brook Lopez, Pierce and Garnett did help Brooklyn return to the playoffs for a second straight year in 2013-2014.

The legendary duo even pushed the Nets past the Raptors in the opening round of that year’s playoffs, a victory that may have eluded them if Pierce had not stepped up and blocked Toronto guard Kyle Lowry’s bid for a game-winning basket as time expired.

“I got my hand on the ball — game over,” Pierce said that night.

And after dropping the next series in five games to the Miami Heat, Pierce’s stint in Brooklyn was soon to be over as well.

After his single season with the Nets, Pierce signed with the Washington Wizards the very next summer and spent the following two years in Los Angeles with the Clippers before calling it a career after a first-round playoff exit against Utah earlier this month.

By winning Tuesday night’s lottery, the Celtics, benefitting from Brooklyn’s league-worst 20-62 record this past season, will have the right to pick first in a talent-loaded draft while Nets GM Sean Marks will have to wait for the No. 23 and 27 slots to come up.

Rubbing the salt in even deeper, the Celtics are among the best young teams in the NBA already, and were primed to kick off the Eastern Conference Finals on their home floor against the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night.

All this success in Boston while Marks, head coach Kenny Atkinson and the rest of the Nets’ scouting staff scours the globe, free-agent market and developmental league for some as-yet undiscovered talent.

“This is the hand that we’ve been dealt,” Marks has lamented on more than one occasion since taking on this monumental Downtown rebuilding project.

But wait, it actually gets worse.

Not only will the Nets give up their first-round pick to Boston again next year, they’ll have to sit and watch in their own building while the Celtics pick from among UCLA’s Lonzo Ball, Washington’s Markelle Fultz, Kansas’ Josh Jackson, Kentucky’s De’Aaron Fox or whomever else they deem No. 1 worthy on June 22 at Barclays Center.

Pierce may have been trying to remind Bean Towners how much future talent he helped them acquire by agreeing to be dealt to the Nets four years ago, but in so doing, he took a poke at Brooklynites who aren’t exactly in the mood these days.

“The Swat ‘Heard Round the World,” is no longer reverberating around Brooklyn.

The slap Pierce delivered Tuesday night via social media will likely be felt for years to come.