In The Curious Case Of Fragile Egos, Paul Pierce's Looks A Bit Feeble In Making It Difficult For The Celtics To Pay Tribute To Isaiah Thomas

​“Everybody’s getting a tribute video now. You play for a team, you get traded, you get a tribute video. Now, I’m not saying Isaiah shouldn’t get a tribute video. On February 11, the night I get my jersey retired, I’m not sure I want to look up at the jumbotron and see Isaiah highlights. After all the years I put in … hopefully the Boston Celtics will do that for me. I’m not sure if I want to see an Isaiah video that night.” -Paul Pierce (h/t FTW)

"Danny and I talked about it for 40 minutes. He told me, 'This is what we have planned,' and at the end of the conversation, he said, 'If you don't want us to do Isaiah, we won't.' So I told him, 'I really don't.' So that was it.”https://t.co/H2i4kIS74g

— Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) January 17, 2018

I'd like to thank the Celtics for their gracious offer to play a video tribute on Feb 11th celebrating my 3yrs in Boston. But since it appears this has caused some controversy w/ Paul Pierce's night I'd ask the Celtics instead to focus all of their attention on #34's career.

— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) January 17, 2018

I don't want to make it sound like I can't sympathize with Paul Pierce. If I were in his shoes and had an ego so inflated that it had gotten to the point where thee most minor and unintentional of needling could make it burst, I too might want the evening of my long overdue number retirement all to myself worse than that 'Real Housewife'-in-the-making from Willy Wonka...

That may read like a sarcastic dig at the person who can't stand the thought of a face other than his own gracing the screen of the JumboTron for even thirty seconds out of what is sure to be a four hour canonization of his career, but that's only because that's exactly what it is.

Don't get me wrong, Paul Pierce has gone above and beyond in giving Celtics' fans and the franchise a reason to dedicate the entirety of a night to celebrating the endless amount of buckets he brought to Boston. He is the embodiment of an era that was capped off with a championship, and therefore he is an incomparably bigger piece of their history than Isaiah Thomas. He did plenty of sacrificing to earn the honor of having his jersey raised to the rafters, so he shouldn't have to spare even a second of his ceremony. 

That doesn't change the fact that he comes off as a narcissistic infant by making a huge stink about an inconvenience as insignificant as a pre-video ad-play. If anything, the difference in ovations - measured by both decibel and duration - would show exactly how much more Paul Pierce means to those in attendance than the guy whose last two seasons are worthy of a timely hat tip, so being unable to put a small percentage of personal pride aside seems rather petty. Not even Isaiah Thomas' loved ones would mistake the commemoration as "shared", so maybe hand over one single fry as opposed to looking like the fucking 'Hamburglar' of tribute time. The night is most certainly Pierce's, but would letting a deserving player momentarily hold his place in the spotlight while he took the quickest of tinkle really have ruined it for him?