Paul Pierce implores the Celtics’ to develop their young talent better after Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis trades: “You had Nesmith down there on the end of the bench” originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Paul Pierce isn’t too bullish about the Boston Celtics’ immediate future. Things are not looking good after the NBA’s winningest team traded Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis for salary and tax relief. For Pierce, this could’ve been the moment for their young prospects to make an impact if the franchise had not given up on them too early.
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“What Boston has to start doing, I believe, moving forward, they gotta start doing a better job at developing young talent,” Pierce said on “Ticket & The Truth.” “They let too many young talents slip through the cracks and kind of like trade them. You had Nesmith down there on the end of the bench. Look what he turned out.”
Pierce’s view didn’t account for the Celtics’ internal growth
The Truth’s concern about Boston is understandable. As a Celtics legend, he knows what it takes to win at the highest level. The franchise certainly isn’t going anywhere next season, with Jayson Tatum looking at a full year of recovery from an Achilles injury.
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As Pierce may have thought, this Celtics gap year wouldn’t be as bad if they hadn’t let go of young talents such as Aaron Nesmith. Nesmith, the C’s lottery pick in the 2020 Draft, was traded to the Indiana Pacers in 2022 after getting buried on the Boston bench for a couple of seasons. He became an indispensable piece in the Pacers’ improbable 2025 title run.
Still, Pierce’s view overlooks a few key factors. First and foremost, Boston wouldn’t have been in championship contention for the past several years without developing young talent. They drafted Tatum and Jaylen Brown in back-to-back years and turned Payton Pritchard into the NBA’s best sixth man.
Moreover, the Nesmith trade shouldn’t be held against the Celtics. Even though the Vanderbilt product tore through college (averaged 23 points and five rebounds in his second year before declaring for the draft), Boston had too many 2s and 3s on their depth chart.
“It was a tough situation where we had those wings in front of him,” said Ime Udoka, who coached Nesmith in his second year in Boston. “But it wasn’t just that. It was the backups that we had, Josh Richardson, Dennis Schroeder and a lot of guys in those spots.”
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Even a franchise as great as the Celtics is bound to make mistakes at some point. Malcolm Brogdon (whom they acquired in place of Nesmith) never panned out, but Boston got it right more often than not.
The Celtics could still make some noise
Trading Holiday and Prozingis on separate deals was purely a money move for the Green and White. Although they lost Jrue and his defensive intensity, they added some scoring relief by acquiring Anfernee Simons.
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Simons put up 19.3 points and 4.8 assists last season while launching over eight threes per game, an ideal fit for Joe Mazzulla’s system.
However, as Pierce mentioned, the Celtics should expect their defense to drop without Holiday and with the presence of Simons. After all, Simons had a +/- of -220 last season). He has the 11th-worst defensive rating in the Association.
That said, the Celtics did better than expected in the 10 games Tatum missed last season. They went 7-3, although none of the Ws came against a playoff team. Boston is a deep and experienced squad with enough continuity to stay competitive in a weakened Eastern Conference.
While Pierce’s concerns aren’t without merit, the Celtics haven’t exactly abandoned development. Their win-now urgency stems from the fact that Tatum and Brown are already operating at an elite level. If anything, that should speak volumes about Boston’s development program and not a knock on it.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.