NBA Rookie Role Models: Is Jabari Parker the next Paul Pierce?

Every year, a new batch of rookies takes the stage in the NBA. And every year, we have no idea how their skills will translate from college (or where ever their previous stop happened to be) to The Association. This week, the Hardwood Paroxysm crew put together some role models that some of the new NBA rookie class should follow. Rookies: these could be you.

Jabari Parker, this could be you: Paul Pierce

By Evans Clinchy (@evansclinchy)

It’s been said many a time about Jabari Parker that he’s the one “can’t miss” prospect of this incoming draft class. Other guys like Wiggins and Embiid may have more upside, but Parker is the safest bet. We’ve already seen what he can do. We watched him at Duke and we know he can score in bunches. That’s guaranteed. He can take the floor right now for the Milwaukee Bucks, never learn a thing, never evolve even the slightest bit and still throw down 18 or 20 points a night for the foreseeable future. Because he’s a scorer, and that’s what scorers do.

Then again, NBA history is littered with guys who came into the league full of scoring firepower, unleashed it all within a few years and then were done being relevant players by their mid-twenties. While Parker certainly has the potential to be more than that, it sure would help if he had a good role model – and I believe Paul Pierce might be just the man for that job.

Like Parker, Pierce also entered the league as a big, stocky forward with a ton of scoring ability and not much else. But later in his career – and especially post-2007 when Kevin Garnett arrived and changed the culture on Pierce’s Celtics – Pierce became a lot more than that. As for his scoring, he was craftier about it, finding creative ways to get open shots and using veteran tricks to draw contact and get to the line. He also became a better rebounder, a better defender and a prideful, swaggery player. The kind of guy who… you know, pulls a Willis Reed and retakes the floor after an injury and helps his team win a Finals game.

I think the best-case scenario for Jabari Parker is that he doesn’t wait until he’s 28 like Pierce did – that he finds the complete package of skills and puts it all together early. The ideal way to do that may well be to take that Pierce blueprint now and get started.