Paul Pierce is a 10-time All-Star, a member of the 75th Anniversary Team and Celtics legend. He did all that after overcoming being stabbed 11 times in a horrific nightclub attack early in his career, and yet sadly, one of the first things to always come up when looking back on Pierce’s time in the NBA is the wheelchair incident.
You all know what the wheelchair incident is, but just in case, let’s spell it out. In the third quarter of Game 1 of the 2008 Finals, Pierce went down with an apparent leg injury that seemed so bad that he had to be carried off the court and placed in a wheelchair.
He then made what seemed to be a miraculous recovery and returned a couple minutes later, helping win the game, and eventually, the series, for the Celtics. He even took home Finals MVP honors in the process.
Lakers fans have always been salty about Pierce’s dramatic exit and return, and a conspiracy theory eventually arose that said that Pierce didn’t get wheeled off because he was hurt. Instead, he needed to be seated to cover up the unfortunate fact that he had, well, soiled himself, so to speak.
Pierce himself has given conflicting accounts of what happened as time has passed. In 2019, he confessed that he needed to go to the bathroom, which is why everything went down the way it did. Not long after, though, he put out this amazing tweet backtracking on that confession.
Sorry to bust y’all haters bubble but the only Ing I did June 5 2008 was on the Lakers #factz #haterzgonnahate #
— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) June 6, 2019
Last year, he claimed on FS1’s Speak that his leg went numb, but after putting a brace on it, he felt fine and ran back out to the court. He also said that he didn’t have to use the bathroom, and he told the same story on All the Smoke a few months later.
Pierce should probably just flush it and move on, but for some reason, he’s talking about the infamous incident again, this time on No Fouls Given, his podcast that he cohosts with Danny Green and Wosne Lambre. On the latest episode, he asked, “First of all, who asked for a wheelchair? Did y’all see me ask for a wheelchair?”
Pierce has long maintained that the trainer is the one who called for the wheelchair, and he stayed consistent here. You know how when a person protests their innocence and then begins exaggerating, though? That’s what he did next, which will only fuel the conspiracy theories.
“Why would I s***, why would I take a wheelchair to go use the bathroom?” he asked. “It doesn’t make sense that social media continues to do that. I’ve never even had to use the bathroom during a game.”
Including playoffs, Pierce played in over 1,500 NBA games. He’s imbibed untold gallons of Gatorade, for sure. You’re telling us that you’ve never even had to urinate? That seems highly unlikely, and by association, calls into question anything else he says.
The internet is always going to believe that Pierce left the court for reasons other than his leg, and there’s nothing he can do about it. The only way he can help himself is to just stop talking about it and hope it eventually goes away.
The post Paul Pierce Declares Taking the Wheelchair to the Bathroom Story a Blatant Lie appeared first on The SportsRush.
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