Midseason Roundtable Grades: Paul Pierce

Kenneth Armstrong: Pass

Paul Pierce gets a "pass" because that's what you give a second-semester senior that is about to graduate. Pierce is on his way out, and I think this season was about seeing if he had enough to put the Clippers over the edge as a veteran scorer they could use in bursts. It doesn't seem like he's up for that role, so it is just about getting to the finish line, for Pierce, at this point.

Robert Flom: D+

Paul Pierce was a huge disappointment for me last season. While I didn’t think he was even a starting level player anymore, I thought he could be at least a nice player to have off the bench. Instead, he was a catastrophe, one of the worst players in the league. Therefore, I had no expectations for him going into this season. And he hasn’t beaten that level of nothing. Pierce has played just over 150 minutes so far this season, and has been every bit as much a disaster as he was last year. He’s just not an NBA level athlete any more, and is essentially a waste of a roster spot (outside of “locker room presence”). His send-off in Boston was expertly handled by him, Doc Rivers, and the team in general, so that was cool. But overall, I mostly just forget he is on the team. Which is still better than last year, when I was actively angry at him receiving minutes.

Shapan Debnath: D

I bumped him up from an F because he's hitting threes at a better clip this year, and maybe because I'm a softie. It's been a great career, but you're pretty bad at basketball now.

Max Jeffrey: D-

The only thing keeping me from giving him an F is that he’s Paul freaking Pierce. There’s really not much else to say though, and it really pains me to say this about one of the all-time greats during his final NBA season. Pierce, in recent years, has undoubtedly regressed defensively, though this was never a highlight of his game to begin with. But he was at least able to remain effective at the offensive end of the floor over the last few years. This year, in his very limited minutes, Pierce can’t even hit open threes, the only thing the Clippers really need him to do. I won’t even bring up his stats for this season; to put it plainly, they’re really bad. This has undoubtedly been the worst season of an otherwise tremendous career, and Pierce certainly deserved a better ending than this.

Thomas Wood: No credit

Isn't he just auditing this class?