Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce has weighed in on the recent beef between Golden State Warriors big man Draymond Green and Kenyon Martin, a former NBA All-Star who reached the NBA Finals twice with Jason Kidd and the New Jersey Nets.
Green and Martin have each been disparaging the other’s NBA accomplishments, which has included Martin recently naming a long list of power forwards in league history whom he feels were better players than Green.
While Martin was one of the NBA’s best big guys during much of his career, Draymond has used Martin’s lack of a championship as fuel for criticism, pointing to his own four rings with the Warriors as proof of his own value.
Of course, that’s opened up a completely different argument that Draymond has benefitted throughout his career from playing with all-time greats like Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson.
While appearing as a guest on the No Fouls Given show, Pierce defended Martin, saying that Martin would have won four championships if you replaced Green with him on those Warriors teams.
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Pierce knows better than anything how good of a player Martin was during his prime. Pierce’s Celtics famously lost to Martin’s Nets in six games in the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals. It was the height of the Pierce-Antoine Walker era in Boston and the closest that Pierce got to an NBA Finals before Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived.
Observers of Kenyon Martin’s career know how special he was, even if Green isn’t acknowledging it. Martin was an absolute beast in college at Cincinnati, where he won the 2000 National College Player of the Year award and became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2000 NBA Draft.
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Martin also ended up being one of two players from that draft to make an All-Star team, along with Jamaal Magloire.
