“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.

Wade	Every match	Pierce
22.0	Point	19.7
4.7	Rebounds	5.6
5.4	Assist	3.5
1.5	Steals	1.3
0.8	Blocks	0.6
3.2	Turnovers	2.6
33.9	Minute	34.2
48.0	Throw ratio	44.5
29.3	% successful 3-point shots	36.8
76.5	% successful free throws	80.6

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.

Wade	Total	Pierce
1,054	Battle	1,343
23,165	Point	26,397
4,933	Rebounds	7,527
5,701	Assist	4,708
1,620	Steals	1,752
885	Blocks	745
3,326	Turnovers	3,532
35,773	Minute	45,880

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

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

Wade	In-depth statistics	Pierce
23.5	Player Efficiency Rating – Efficiency score	19.7
62.8	Value Over Replacement – Conversion value	65.5
5.0	Box Plus/Minus – Coefficient +/-	3.7
120.7	Win Shares – Share wins	150.0
55.4	True Shooting % – Actual shooting percentage	56.8
31.4	Usage % – Usage level on the field	26.8

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	Average per game	Pierce
22.3	Point	18.7
5.2	Rebounds	5.8
4.9	Assist	3.4
1.5	Steals	1.2
1.0	Blocks	0.6
3.3	Turnovers	2.8
37.8	Minutes of competition	36.6
47.4	Throw success rate	42.3
33.8	% of successful 3 throws	35.5
78.0	% successful free throws	83.0

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.

Wade	Total	Pierce
177	Battle	170
3,954	Point	3,180
928	Rebounds	985
870	Assist	579
273	Steals	204
175	Blocks	105
583	Turnovers	476
6,697	Minutes of competition	6,229

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

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

Wade	In-depth statistics	Pierce
22.4	Player Efficiency Rating – Efficiency score	17.2
12.3	Value Over Replacement- Conversion value	8.1
5.3	Box Plus/Minus – Coefficient +/-	3.2
21.6	Win Shares – Share wins	16.3
54.9	True Shooting % – Actual shooting percentage	55.4
30.1	Usage % – Usage level on the field	25.7

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.

Wade	Achievements and titles	Pierce
3	NBA champion	first
first	Finals MVPs	first
8	All-NBA	4
3	All-Defense	0
13	All-Star	ten
first	Scoring Titles	0

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.

Wade	Confrontation achievements	Pierce
November 22	Regular Season achievements	11-22
21.3	Medium score	19.5
4.3	Average rebounds	5.5
5.2	Average build	3.3
9-13	Playoff achievements	9-13
3	Win the Playoff series	first
25.4	Playoff – Average score	17.8
5.5	Playoff – Average Rebounds	5.0
5.1	Playoff – Average assists	2.5