Yahoo’s “The Vertical” is a new NBA venture built around news-breaker extraordinaire, Adrian Wojnarowski. Launched as the rubble of Grantland’s demise, The Vertical promises to be more insider and multi-media driven.
The site now has three separate “The Vertical” podcasts… one by Woj himself based out of New York City where he grabs some of the biggest names in the league. A second is hosted by JJ Redick, which just went live this weekend, and is the first hosted by an active NBA player (which was really interesting, and also worth the listen). And the third went live this morning, and it’s hosted by Boston’s own Chris Mannix, who left his gig at Sports Illustrated to join the Yahoo/Vertical team.
In his debut episode, Mannix sits down with Paul Pierce to talk about The Truth’s amazing career. It starts with a conversation of Mannix’s own time as a Boston ball boy during Pierce’s early years and quickly moves into his beginnings as a basketball player in Inglewood, transformation into a lottery pick in Kansas, and his drop to the Celtics in the 1998 draft.
From there he gets into why the Pitino years failed, the team’s resurgence under Jim O’Brien, and the end of Boston’s first run of success… which turned into a rebuild during Pierce’s prime. After that… we get into the meat of the Celtics new Big 3 era, and the ups and down that came with that team.
Some interesting takeaways from this podcast:
When Danny and Doc took over, Pierce shot down a potential trade to Portland and actively pursued a trade to Dallas, going so far as to tell Marc Cuban, during a chance encounter, to go get him out of Boston.
The Ray Allen/Rajon Rondo feud was, in Pierce’s opinion, overblown and Rondo fought with KG more than anyone (but Rondo did have a feud with everyone, apparently).
Danny Ainge approached Pierce and Garnett the season BEFORE they were traded to let them know that he’d consider moving them because he had to consider the team’s future.
A lot of great, great stuff here, and it’s worth the hour of your time. You can go directly to the page for all the download subscription information, but I’ll also embed the podcast here.
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