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Paul Pierce Almost Left The Boston Celtics To Team Up With Dirk Nowitzki Just One Year Before They Won The Championship: "I'm Your Missing Piece."

Paul Pierce nearly left the Boston Celtics one year before they won the NBA championship.

The 2007 offseason will always be a legendary one for Celtics fans. It was the time that Danny Ainge orchestrated the largest trade in regard to player personnel in NBA history. The trade for Kevin Garnett turned out to be a huge swing for the Celtics. Combined with Ray Allen, Pierce, and Garnett helped lead the Celtics to the 2008 championship, which was the team’s first title since the days of Larry Bird and Kevin McHale.

There was a time when being a champion was not something Pierce thought was possible with the Celtics. While Pierce is a Hall of Famer and an all-time Celtics legend, he thought he was going to be shipped out of Boston that same offseason. Had that happened, the Celtics would have not had Allen, nor Garnett. That also means that the Celtics would be titleless since the 80s, while the Dallas Mavericks could have been a championship contender before 2011.

Here is the blockbuster trade that never happened.

Paul Pierce Wanted To Preserve His Prime

At the end of the 2006-07 season, Pierce was tired of losing. When Doc Rivers started coaching the team, the relationship between coach and player was already murky. By the end of this season, Rivers and Pierce had grown to like each other more but that didn’t equate to wins. The Celtics won 24 games and owned the second-worst record in the league. That led to Pierce approaching Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in Las Vegas pushing for a trade.

“Pierce told Cuban: I’m your missing piece,” wrote Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. Pierce pushed Schwartz to attempt to engineer a trade to Dallas. ‘I’m in my prime, and I’m watching all these other guys in the playoffs. It was depressing. I thought I was out of there. I thought it was over.”

At the time, the Mavericks were just one season off from making the NBA Finals in 2006, where they were defeated by the Heat. The following year, Dirk Nowitzki won the MVP Award and led the Mavericks to the one seed in the West; however, the team was defeated by the eight-seeded Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. With Nowitzki and Jason Terry leading the way, the addition of Pierce would have potentially given the Mavericks a dangerous team.

A First-Round Pick Derailed The Trade

Cuban took his plea to heart. Cuban made a few phone calls and had a deal in place. That would have led to the big three in Dallas with Nowitzki and Pierce in their primes. Getting this deal done, would have required a third team. Cuban would post on his official Twitter handle that the deal was nearly done but it was rejected when it was found out that the Celtics would get a first-round pick.

“It gets better. We had a deal done. We had a 3-way trade done,” wrote Cuban. “All teams agreed to their part of the deal. When we got on the trade call, the 3rd team killed the deal because they didn't know that the first was going to the Celtics. They chose not to do the deal at all.”

The official details of the trade cannot be found. The players, draft capital, and third team are unknown. It can be assumed that Josh Howard would be a part of the deal. Howard was the team’s starting small forward and came off averaging a career-high 18.9 points in his fourth season. There might have been a few other players and a first-round pick going to the Celtics.

Celtics Projected Lineup If Trade Happened

PG: Sebastian Telfair

SG: Wally Szczerbiak

SF: Josh Howard

PF: Al Jefferson

C: Kendrick Perkins

At the time, Rajon Rondo was the backup to Telfair. When Telfair was traded to the Timberwolves, it created a starting spot for Rondo. If the trade for Garnett didn’t happen, we might have not witnessed Rondo turns into an All-Defensive point guard in the league. Szczerbiak shared time in a starting role with Delonte West but averaged more points.

The addition of Howard would have given the team an offensive player to fill the void of Pierce. Howard would have been paired alongside Al Jefferson, who was the team’s second-best player when he averaged 16.0 points and 11.0 rebounds. Howard, Jefferson, and Perkins would have been long and athletic, but it would have been a cluster in the middle.

Mavericks Projected Lineup If Trade Happened

PG: Devin Harris

SG: Jason Terry

SF: Paul Pierce

PF: Dirk Nowitzki

C: Erick Dampier

On paper, this would have been a very strong starting lineup. Nowitzki won the MVP after coming off a season where he made the 50-40-90 Club. Nowitzki averaged 24.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 3.4 assists. Terry averaged 16.7 points and shot over 43% from three-point range. At the time, Pierce was coming off a season where he averaged 25.0 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.1 assists. This big three would have been a tight offensive group.

The Mavericks won 67 games from the season before. The addition of Pierce might have helped the team win more games. Who knows? What we do know is that the Mavericks were already really good. With two Hall of Famers on the team, the Mavericks might have been able to run it back.

The Aftermath

Pierce never was traded away. Instead, the Celtics decided to buy in and build around their superstar player. The team traded for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to make a big three. Rondo was inserted into the starting lineup. Eventually, these four players would turn into All-Star together on the same team. That would also include making the NBA Finals in 2008 and 2010. The team defeated the Lakers in the 2008 Finals and Pierce was named the Finals MVP.

As for the Mavericks, the team would eventually make the NBA Finals in 2011 with the core of Nowitzki and Terry. The Mavericks would make moves to acquire Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, and Shawn Marion. These moves would help the team win the 2011 title with Nowitzki being named the Finals MVP. Ultimately, it was a happy ending for both franchises with both star players being named the best in the Finals.

Let’s pretend that the trades never went down though. For the Celtics, it would have likely been a massive rebuilding project. The team would have not won the 2008 title and we would be talking about how the legendary Celtics have fallen. Allen would have been on the trade market with the SuperSonics and likely been dealt elsewhere. As for Garnett, he might have stayed with the Timberwolves or the team would have not hurt their future with this obnoxious trade with the Celtics.

As for the Mavericks, the team would have been favored to win 70 games in 2007-08. Assuming that the Lakers made the deal for Pau Gasol, this might have been the matchup in the Conference Finals. Comparing these two teams is a discussion for another day, but it would have been a masterful postseason series. Look over to the other side. The Detroit Pistons dynasty would have featured their third appearance in the NBA Finals. This would have brought back 80s vibes from when Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas battled with their respective franchise.

This would have had even further ramifications for the future as well. The 2010 playoffs featured the Celtics making it back to the NBA Finals. That included the Celtics beating the Cavaliers in the second round of the playoffs. Because of that playoff loss, LeBron James left Cleveland to form a superteam with the Heat. If the Celtics were not a superteam of their own, would James have never left? Would we have been granted a LeBron vs Kobe Finals? There are so many potential alternate futures. We will never know what that could have been. 

Next

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This article first appeared on Fadeaway World and was syndicated with permission.

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