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Paul Pierce says he toted a gun at all times for two years following his 2000 stabbing at a Boston nightclub and that he was prepared to “kill somebody.” The former Boston Celtics star — and for one season, a Brooklyn Net – made that revelation Thursday on the “All the Smoke” podcast hosted by …
Paul Pierce says he toted a gun at all times for two years following his 2000 stabbing at a Boston nightclub and that he was prepared to “kill somebody.”
The former Boston Celtics star — and for one season, a Brooklyn Net – made that revelation Thursday on the “All the Smoke” podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
“It was so bad that I couldn’t even, like, sleep,” said Pierce, who was stabbed multiple times at Buzz Club in Boston in September 2000, just before the start of his third NBA season. “I had to have a 24-hour police surveillance in my house, that’s how paranoid I was.
“It changes you, dude. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know who to look at, you on your toes. You’re, like, really on your toes, like, ‘Man, I’ll kill somebody.’”
Pierce was stabbed eight times in the back and stomach at the Buzz Club, which no longer is in operation, over what he has claimed was a conversation with a woman.
William Ragland was found guilty in 2002 of the stabbings and was sentenced to 7-to-10 years in prison, while another man, Trevor Watson, was sentenced to one year for hitting Pierce during the attack.
“People don’t know this, but I actually carried a gun for two years right after that,” Pierce said Thursday on the podcast. “I was so paranoid. Like, I kept it in the car, I had it on me. I was so paranoid after that. I was just like, I couldn’t be in crowds. Something like that happens to you, man, it’s traumatic.
“I was like to the point of, like, losing it.”
Pierce is the NBA’s 15th leading scorer all-time, totaling 26,397 points over 19 seasons with four teams, including one year with the Nets in 2013-14. The 10-time All-Star appeared in all 82 games in 2000-01 with the Celtics, averaging 25.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.
