“Put Shaquille O’Neal on my team. Put LeBron James and Chris Bosh on my team. Then how can I win? Don’t you think so? Me, LeBron and Bosh — wouldn’t that be a team like that?” champion?” Pierce said, with the implication that Wade’s success is largely due to him being in too strong teams.

After emphasizing his reasons for believing he was a better scorer than Wade, Pierce reiterated that “my skills are not appreciated simply because I don’t get to play with many good players.”

A few days later, Pierce took to Twitter to clarify things, saying: “I never meant to disrespect Wade, he is one of the greatest players in history. I mean everything about me It would be different if I was lucky enough to play with basketball legends earlier in my career.”

Remember in 2019 while still working on ESPN’s “NBA Countdown”, Pierce also talked about this. Let’s join Sporting News to compare two legends in detail.

Dwyane Wade vs Paul Pierce: Compare statistics in the regular season

While Pierce is adamant that his scoring ability is superior to Wade’s, the statistics show that Wade has a higher scoring record and a higher career scoring average. During the 2008/09 season, Wade led the league with a career-high scoring average of 30.2 points in 79 games. Pierce only averaged a maximum of 26.8 points in 79 games during the 2005/06 season.

In terms of scoring, it’s worth noting that Pierce’s scoring decreased during his age 38 and 39 seasons with the Clippers, where he only averaged 5.4 points in 93 games. Meanwhile, Wade has never averaged less than 10 points in his career.

Dwyane Wade vs Paul Pierce: In-depth statistics in Regular season

Wade and Pierce are quite balanced in in-depth statistics. Details below:

Dwyane Wade vs Paul Pierce: Compare playoff statistics

Similar to the regular season comparison, Wade outperformed Pierce in playoff points largely due to Pierce only playing a limited role in his final two seasons.

Wade’s playoff peak also surpassed Pierce’s. In 2010, Wade averaged 33.2 points in a series loss to Pierce’s own Celtics. Pierce’s highest scoring average in a playoff round was 27.1 points per game in a 10-game series in 2003.

The rebounding and 3-point shooting stats are quite similar, but Pierce is still slightly ahead. Wade has a better assist index and has a slight advantage in blocks and steals.

Dwyane Wade vs. Paul Pierce: In-depth Playoff statistics

Wade excels in 5/6 depth indicators as shown in the table below:

Dwyane Wade vs Paul Pierce: Achievements and titles

As for awards, Wade has achieved a little more than Pierce. Wade’s three NBA titles far exceed Pierce’s, although each player was named NBA Finals MVP once.

Wade has been selected to the All-NBA Team twice as often as Pierce and has been an All-Defense selection three times while Pierce has none. Both have been named All-Stars multiple times, although Wade (13) has slightly more than Pierce (10).

Wade’s only scoring title also gives him an advantage. Both were members of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team and were also inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Dwyane Wade vs Paul Pierce: Head-to-head record

Fans have seen Wade and Pierce face off more than 50 times in their careers, including 33 times in the regular season and 4 times in the playoffs.

Wade excelled in head-to-head performance in both the regular season and playoffs, including the classic seven-match series in the Eastern Finals in 2012.