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[Source](https://www.si.com/nba/2021/09/07/paul-pierce-celtics-hall-of-fame-daily-cover)
>Let’s start here: Paul Pierce isn’t sorry.
>Not for the video, that minutes-long clip that made the rounds on social media, the one that cost Pierce his job at ESPN. Honestly, Pierce didn’t even know he made a video. Here’s what happened: In April, Pierce was playing poker at a friend’s house in Los Angeles. There was drinking. And smoking. And strippers. And after a little too much drinking and smoking, Pierce decided to start an Instagram Live and, well, show off the strippers. He went on for a few minutes, riffing, he thought, for a couple hundred people. When he finished, he deleted it. **He didn’t know IG Lives can be recorded (they can) and reposted (it was). Pierce went home that night thinking no one noticed. He woke up the next day and discovered everyone had.**
>Still . . . sorry? “For what?” asks Pierce. It’s early July, and Pierce is reclining in a straight-backed chair at The Spot, a hookah lounge tucked into a strip mall in Encino, Calif. Around him, clusters of 20- and 30-somethings, many on laptops huddled over glowing screens, oblivious to the presence of basketball royalty. Hours earlier, Pierce was at home, a tailor dispatched by the Basketball Hall of Fame taking measurements for a suit to fit Pierce’s 6’7” frame. “I haven’t bought a new suit since I retired,” says Pierce. But he needed something to wear in September for his enshrinement in Springfield, Mass., 90 miles from where he spent the bulk of his 19-year NBA career.
>ESPN didn’t ask for an apology. The relationship between Pierce and the network had become strained over the past two years. Pierce hated the travel. Network executives didn’t think he was working hard enough. The video, industry sources told Sports Illustrated, was the last straw. “I was done with them, anyway,” says Pierce between pulls of lemon mint. **“It wasn’t a great fit. There’s a lot of stuff over there that you can’t say. And you have to talk about LeBron all the time.”**
>Pierce’s longtime agent, Jeff Schwartz, suggested Pierce apologize anyway. Schwartz worried that the video might influence Hall voters. Pierce didn’t. “Come on, I didn’t do anything illegal,” says Pierce. “These motherf—–s in the Hall of Fame, some did [cocaine], f—ing battery. What the f— did I do? I was just having a good time. All the people coming after me, half you motherf—–s do the same s—. You’re just hiding it. And you all are married while you’re doing it. I’m divorced. I’m retired. I’m having fun.” And if Hall voters had held it against him? “Listen,” says Pierce, “if I didn’t make it with this class, it would be the biggest stiff job in Hall of Fame history.”
>Schwartz suggested Pierce speak to Jerry Colangelo, the longtime NBA and USA Basketball exec who doubled as Hall chairman. Pierce agreed. In May, Pierce was in Springfield for former teammate Kevin Garnett’s induction. At a dinner, he approached Colangelo. Pierce repeated: He didn’t think he did anything wrong. “What happened has nothing to do with what I did on the court,” says Pierce.
>Pierce has ideas. He’s collaborating with Garnett on a few. The two are planning on launching a podcast. Pierce wants to do a show that follows the two of them traveling the world. “Just doing all the s— we couldn’t do when we played,” says Pierce. For example? “Skydiving,” says Pierce. “Maybe a bull run in Spain. Get motorcycles and travel around. Experience different cultures, different foods. That would be so much fun.”
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Lmfaoooo this is just amazing. All of it. Everyone should read it.
I would definitely watch that travel show with KG.
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