How Paul Pierce’s Game Has Eroded Since Last Season

January 29th, 2013 by Matthew Schmidt Leave a reply »
Paul Pierce is 35 years old. He has now been in the league for 15 years and has logged over 39,000 minutes of playing time. That is essentially the equivalent of playing basketball non-stop for 28 days in a row.

That is how much mileage Pierce has on his body.

So, it's only natural that the skills of the future Hall of Famer are going to erode.

This is not a knock on Pierce. This is just the natural course of events, and the fact that he is still a fringe All-Star caliber player at this stage of his career is absolutely remarkable and is a testament to just how good The Truth really is and how fiercely his heart beats in his chest.

Pierce's graceful decline has been most salient in his efficiency. A career 44.7 percent shooter, the captain is hitting on only 41.9 percent of his shot attempts this season, his lowest mark since 2003-04. If you've watched Pierce at all this year, that number comes as no surprise, either.

We are seeing the veteran settle for more three-pointers than usual, attempting five per game. That is up from the 4.5 he averaged in 2011-12 and the 3.7 he was taking in the two years prior. Obviously, this is a ...

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