The Truth Revealed

Pierce went off to Kansas in 1995 and led a talent-rich team that went 69--6 in his final two seasons. Now that NBA dream life was close. He left school after his junior year, sailed into the 1998 draft hearing talk that he could go as high as No. 3, yet when the day came, Paul sat unpicked as future journeymen Michael Olowokandi, Raef LaFrentz, Robert Traylor and Jason Williams skipped up to the podium. The Celtics snapped him up at No. 10: more fuel for the furnace. That fall Pierce practiced jumpers while shouting out the names of every player taken ahead of him.

"I've always been the Rodney Dangerfield of this game," he says. "Maybe it was meant to be that way, but that always drove me. If somebody said, 'You're going to be the Number 1 pick, you're going to have a great team around you all these years'? It would've been too easy."

It didn't take long to prove himself. He and Antoine Walker became one of the league's top-scoring tandems, and if the 6'7" Pierce was not your classic aerodynamic swingman, opponents still found his first step impossible to stop, his shot nearly unblockable. He rebounded, swatted away shots; by his second season Pierce was among the league leaders in steals. But most unusual, perhaps, was his sense of calm. Pierce never seemed rushed, no matter how frenetic the pace. "One of the best tempo scorers I've ever seen," says Rivers. "He just puts the defender on a string all night. They're dropping, off-balance ... but he's always balanced."

After the games he could play too. Pierce liked bars and clubs; he was known to get together with friends and have a time, and off-season nights in L.A. could stretch till dawn. In his early college years it wasn't unusual for him and Crowe to bolt a club at 3 a.m., grab a bite and then head to Manhattan Beach to sprint the sand hills. "Play basketball, chase girls and have fun," Crowe says. "And do each with the same aggression."

It didn't let up when Pierce moved to Boston. "He was competitive in everything: a game of H-O-R-S-E, a game of cards, an evening out," says Orlando Magic forward Tony Battie, a former Celtics teammate. "We'd get together and hang pretty rough and party pretty hard, but he would be the first one in the gym in the morning, talking smack. You'd get in at 9 o'clock and think you're early, but Paul was there at 7:30. He'd out-party you, then get his lift in while you were still sleeping off the night before."

On Sunday night, Sept. 24, 2000, Pierce had just returned home from dinner with Steve Hosey in Boston when Battie called. Paul hung up and told his brother he'd be back soon. Steve was in town from California; the two would be playing in a golf tournament the next day. Hosey went to his room, began sorting through the clothes he'd wear on the course, when a voice shot through his head: You're not golfing tomorrow.

Hosey shrugged it off. The feeling rolled through him again. He looked out the window, checking for snow or rain: nothing. He got into bed, turned off the light. Twenty minutes later he sat up, unable to shake the sense that something was wrong. Such a thing had never happened before, so he got on his knees to pray. He didn't know why.

Then the phone rang.

IT WAS just past 1 a.m. on Sept. 25 when Pierce, along with Battie and Battie's brother, Derrick, arrived at Boston's Buzz Club. What happened next took mere minutes: The Batties veered off for the men's room, Pierce strolled through the pool room. When he leaned down to talk to two women, a man stepped forward and said, "That's my sister." Pierce said, "No disrespect," and tried to backpedal. "Next thing you know," he says, "all hell breaks loose."

A champagne bottle crashed against the side of his head, and a swarm of men descended, punching, stabbing, windmilling blows from all angles. At least two blades flashed. One sliced three times into Pierce's abdomen, with one jab slicing his diaphragm, puncturing a lung and plunging to within a half-inch of his heart.