Paul Pierce, Jason Terry, Trolling, and the Art of Aging Gracelessly

Players don't survive in the NBA for a decade and a half without learning a handful of new tricks along the way. This is less about personal growth than it is about survival in a merciless game. Jordan and Kobe famously tweaked their midrange games into perfection to avoid having to attack the rim every play. Duncan and Malone developed new footwork to compensate for the loss of their old quickness. Steve Nash committed to strenuous exercise, diet, and napping routines to keep his body fresh.

Jason Terry and Paul Pierce have changed and refined their games, too, but we can put some of their survival down to their cultivated, finely calibrated saltiness. Terry and Pierce have emerged in their dotage and these playoffs as the NBA's arch-trolls, virtuoso chatterboxes that effortlessly piss off every fan except the ones rooting for whatever jersey they're wearing. These two very different players have mastered the art of aging gracelessly, and done it with giant grins on their faces.

They can still play, too, of course. Both men are on the court because of their longstanding, and still outstanding, ability to knock down big shots. But at 37 years old, each with a championship ring and many millions in the bank, they seem to have found a new reason to play, and a new type of currency to play for—your lusty, loathing-steeped boos.

At the end of their careers, Terry and Pierce have stayed dangerous by tapping into the negativity that's the NBA's purest renewable energy source. It makes them dangerous, and worth far more than the combined 18 points per game they averaged this season.

Pierce will always be remembered as a Celtic; it will be the uniform he wears on his Hall of Fame plaque, and his jersey will hang in relative proximity to Larry Bird's in the Garden's rafters. What he's become in the post-Celtic twilight of his career is arguably more interesting. In his mid-thirties, Pierce has emerged as something of a mercenary and a proud heel. He's played for two teams in two seasons and helped bring them both playoff success.

Pierce evinces little allegiance to these teams beyond the service he provided them. In a recent interview he said of his former Brooklyn Nets team, "If me and Kevin (Garnett) weren't there, that team would have folded up." They were there, though, and helped the Nets get past the Toronto Raptors in the first round. His new team, the Washington Wizards are on the verge of eliminating those very same Raptors. He predicted this much when he claimed that Toronto doesn't have "the 'it' that makes you worried."

This was either calculated or petty (or both), but it was only the first move in his chess game of pissing off Canada. Before Game One Raptors' president Masai Ujiri loudly declared, "I don't give a shit about" Pierce's comments. Pierce, predictably, went on to score 20 points in that game, going 7 for 10 and ruining the celebration at the Air Canada Centre. He was smiling the whole time, as if he wished it were possible to look every Toronto fan in the eye after every made shot. When asked about Ujiri's expletives after the game, Pierce responded, "Typical Ujiri." He sort of did, anyway; Pierce butchered the pronunciation of Ujiri's last name until it sounded like "Yuri." An advanced troll, there.

After Pierce and the Wizards took a 2-0 lead in the series and headed back to their home court he shouted, "I don't want to go through customs no more." Pierce was predicting a sweep and essentially announcing to Toronto, "I'm done with this place." In Game 3, Pierce erupted for 16 points in the second half and moved his prediction closer to reality. When the Wizards finished the sweep on Sunday, he delivered 14 points on seven shots.

While this persona is something Pierce has tried on in his old age, Terry has been wearing the black hat all along. He has spent over 15 seasons as the NBA's resident chirpmaster. As with Pierce and Boston, Dallas is the place Terry will be remembered best. Terry is arguably the truest sidekick Dirk Nowitzki has ever had, playing more seasons with him than both Steve Nash and Jason Kidd, and served ably as the mouthpiece for the more reserved Nowitzki. His shot-making helped lead the Mavericks to the 2011 NBA Championship, and his "JET down the runway" routine after made three-pointers was as beloved by Dallas' eight-year olds as it was by 40-year-olds. He famously tattooed the Larry O'Brien trophy on his bicep during the preseason the year the Mavs won it all.

This seemed sentimental, until Terry went to Boston for one year and tattooed the Celtics' logo holding the same trophy. It did not yield the same result.

Now, after a stopover in Brooklyn and catching on with Houston, Terry is playing those Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs. It's not that he's being disrespectful or nasty so much as he's reminding the Dallas fans what it feels like to be on the other side of Jason Terry's perpetual cockiness. Before the series, Terry said, "We got the greatest fans in the game right here in Houston," where he has played for just one of his 16 seasons. This might not seem like a slap in the face, but to all those fans in Dallas who claimed him as their own, it's something like your father harping endlessly on how great his new stepchildren are.

Anyway, Houston's fans have nothing much to do with it. Terry, like Pierce, says these things not necessarily because he means them, but because at this stage of their career, it's part of the job description. Things like "moxie" and "swagger" shouldn't make players like Terry or Pierce more capable of hitting big shots in big moments; at any rate, there's no analytic metric that controls for it. And most certainly the insufferable smiles they beam out after those shots can't have any legitimate consequence for their opponents. The game is more complicated than that.

Anyway, you can keep telling yourself that. If you care about the NBA, and have watched these two feast and grow strong on the hate they create, you know the truth.