We smell a nice marketing opportunity for the NBA 2K folks. Today, Paul Pierce informed multiple reporters that the younger generation of NBA players are less competitive because of computers. Adding, “They play NBA2K instead of going to the park.” The 37-year-old was reminiscing about his trash talking wars with Kobe Bryant and lamenting the season-ending surgery to the Lakers star.
Tonight the Wizards face a Kobe-less Lakers team. LA will also be missing Nick Young, but we’re pretty sure Pierce lumps Swaggy P in with the younger generation he derided before tonight’s game:
Paul Pierce says new NBA players not as competitive as their predecessors.
Why?
“Computers. They play NBA2K instead of going to the park.”
— Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) January 27, 2015
Pierce's reason why next generation of players don't trash talk like he and Kobe: "Computers. They play NBA2K instead of going to the park"
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 27, 2015
Pierce misses his trash talking battles with Mamba, and tells Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News Kobe’s injury “saddens me. Kobe is one of my NBA brothers.”
Here’s how Pierce segues from Vino to a less combative younger generation:
“It’s just fun. We’re one of the last two of our generation,” Pierce said. “That’s pretty much a lot of the things we talked about on the court, a little bit of a trash in there. We also said there’s no trash talkers in the league today coming up. It’s a generation that’s passing by and a lot of these guys are friends. I don’t think this new generation is competitive as we were with the past guys.”
Why?
“Computers,” Pierce said. “They play NBA2K instead of going to the park.”
There are a lot of people on Twitter talking about how competitive NBA 2K games can get, but no matter how bonkers you might get with video games nothing replaces the face-to-face competition players experience in real life when they lace ’em up.
Yes, Pierce sounds a little like a cantankerous old man screaming at the scalawags to get off his lawn, but a lot of the opposing buddy-buddy DAP you see after games has been pissing older NBA fans off for a while now. Pierce’s comments strike right at the heart of that generational divide.
While we’re not sure Pierce is entirely accurate with his sentiment about the younger generation and “computers” (we’re on a computer 10-12 hours every day of the week), we certainly empathize with him and we write that…from a computer.
The Wizards face a banged up Lakers team at 10:30 p.m. ET.
Is Pierce right?
Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.