From day one he's put this team on his back and done some amazing stuff to keep the Celtics competitive for so long. We made the playoffs all those years (until the trainwreck in 2006) with Paul Pierce and absolutely nobody.
cough cough...antoine walker...cough cough... leastern conference.... cough... sorry. whew
cough cough... 2008 NBA Finals MVP.... cough cough... Game 4 at LA..... no defense, no team play, no ring without shaq.
no ring without KG or Ray - you are right though, Shaq got 3 Finals MVPs while Kobe was there...but I really dont' get where this Kobe doesn't play defense thing comes from, perhaps its just that his offense completely overshadows it, he really does play solid d generally...
my original point though was that PP didn't carry the team on his back in the 2000s soley - he had the passionate Antoine Walker behind him - Pierce was easily the better basketball player, but Toine brought things to the table that got even more out of him and his teammates, imo
chew on this - the celtics made the playoffs in 2002, 03, 04, 05, and 08 with Pierce - the years 2002, 2003, 2005....guess what happened in 04...c's get swept in the 1st round....