High school kids don’t just walk onto these courts with professional players. They need an invite, and Paul Pierce’s came from longtime NBA veteran and first-year Kings coach Reggie Theus, who also graduated from Inglewood High.
Pierce remembers playing pick-up games with Harold Minor and a number of the Lakers, who sometimes practiced at Inglewood High, including Magic Johnson.
“You can’t touch Magic,” Pierce said. “You can’t even blow on him. Shoot, even when Magic was retired, he’d always win all the games. You can’t touch him.”
NBA. While Paul Pierce seems to be on his way to a sixth All-Star Game and could garner some consideration for league MVP this season, the Celtics’ captain found himself in a precarious situation last summer.
He almost got beaten in a pick-up game by a kid in high school.
Granted, this was no ordinary high schooler. It was Renardo Sidney, a 6-foot-10, 240-pound junior who is widely tabbed as the No. 1 power forward in the nation. Pierce and Sidney share a mutual friend, and they worked out together at the Spectrum Club in Redondo Beach, Calif., where Pierce got a run for his money.
“He scored a little bit on me, but he didn’t win,” Pierce said with a wide grin. “Damn, he was nice, man. I couldn’t believe he was in high school when I played against him. He’s going to be good. He should be a pro. He made me kind of raise my game up. You don’t want to let a high school guy beat you, so I went extra hard on him.”
Pierce remembers similar stories from his days as a teenager, when he rocked a high-top fade that was typical of kids in neighborhoods around Los Angeles.
After getting cut from the varsity squad, Pierce was a star at Inglewood (Calif.) High School during his junior and senior seasons. Referring to himself as “fearless,” he remembers working out with some NBA players at UCLA, and he tried dunking on Olden Polynice — about 13 years Pierce’s senior — which almost sparked a fight.
“It didn’t matter who I played against,” Pierce said. “I was a hungry young kid just trying to prove myself, trying to make a name for myself. I didn’t really get a lot of hype real young until later in my high school career, so every time I stepped on the court, I always had to try to prove myself.”
