Isaiah Thomas vs. Paul Pierce?

[BostonClamCrowdah]

Pierce>>> not close

[RIPRED]

Pierce is pretty clearly the better overall player, but he never quite reached a peak like IT just showed this past season just in terms of scoring.

IT and Rondo is a better comparison in terms of pure effectiveness and this is assuming IT goes on to have several more strong seasons after this past one.

Rondo? If Rondo had to carry our lunch pail team we would win 20 to 25 games. Thomas is the type of player that carries his team on his back, Rondo did that from a scoring perspective only a few times.

We can literally track our winning record to the deadline that we acquired IT, playoffs ever since. If Rondo could do that, he would still be here.

Even Pierce never quite single handedly carried a team like this on the offensive end, not with this kind of success. ECF with only Horford at the All-Star level?

Yep, Rondo.

The guy was magnificent to watch. Sure he needed other scorers to play at his best, but Thomas needs other defenders and a strong 3pt shooting team to play at his best.

I love IT, will be happy to re-sign him and am happy to have him on our team, but I am not going to pretend that he is perfect. And, for the purposes of this thread, Pierce was a much more complete player.

The original question was who is the better scorer. Rondo couldn't even sniff the scoring numbers IT just put up this season. Not saying IT is better than Rondo overall (he might be), but IT is 1000000000000000000000x the scorer that Rondo is/was/will ever be.

[Rosco917]

Which is the more talented scorer in your opinion.

After the season IT4 had, I feel like this is a fair question. Isaiah might be the best inside and out scorer we've ever had. He's a great shooter, incredible at going to the basket and scoring or getting fouled, and he just has a ton of tricks and moves to get his shot.

I watched all of Pierce's career, and I don't remember him ever being THIS good of a scorer. IT's numbers on his shooting splits and clutch percentage is staggering, but it's the way he does it.

So I may seem sacrilegious, but is Thomas the better scorer right now at his peak?

Pierce not only could score the ball, he had valve as a solid defender, and as a good rebounder for his position. Paul went 4 or 5 years of averaging 25-26 plus.

IT did it one time.

[mmmmm]

Which is the more talented scorer in your opinion.

After the season IT4 had, I feel like this is a fair question. Isaiah might be the best inside and out scorer we've ever had. He's a great shooter, incredible at going to the basket and scoring or getting fouled, and he just has a ton of tricks and moves to get his shot.

I watched all of Pierce's career, and I don't remember him ever being THIS good of a scorer. IT's numbers on his shooting splits and clutch percentage is staggering, but it's the way he does it.

So I may seem sacrilegious, but is Thomas the better scorer right now at his peak?

Pierce not only could score the ball, he had valve as a solid defender, and as a good rebounder for his position. Paul went 4 or 5 years of averaging 25-26 plus.

IT did it one time.

Very true.   Of course Paul didn't have to go through quite the same struggle to get the respect to be given the minutes needed to achieve that level of per-game scoring.

More trivia:   Over the course of his career, Paul Pierce averaged over 24 points per 36 minutes on a season twice:  24.7 in 2005-06 and 24.3 in the abbreviated 2006-07 season.  His career per-36 scoring is 20.7.

Thomas has also achieved that mark twice, having average 24.8/36 and 30.8/36 the last two years.   His career rate is 23.0 per 36.  Since he became a Celtic, Thomas is averaging a blistering 27.6 points per 36 minutes.

[gouki88]

As others have said, Paul never had a single season like IT did, but PP had a career (at least a Celtic career) of being the man when the team needed him, and was basically a 20 point guy his entire time here. His longevity and clutchness give him the edge, which doesn't take away anything from IT.