Kevin Garnett defends Europeans against Paul Pierce: 'They come from war' / News - Basketnews.com

Garnett defended European players against Pierce's criticism by reminding him of the places and situations they come from, with Balkan players having to face war while growing up.

Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images/AFP - Scanpix Credit Streeter Lecka/Getty Images/AFP - Scanpix

Paul Pierce has recently been a fierce critic of European NBA players. Kevin Garnett decided to defend them against Pierce.

Kevin Garnett

Position:PFAge:47Height:211 cmWeight:115 kgBirth place:Greenville, United States of AmericaProfileNewsStatistics

Namely, Pierce has labeled European basketballers soft, claiming that nobody in the NBA considers them tough. In the latest episode of the Ticket & The Truth podcast, Kevin Garnett pushed back against the notion, confronting Pierce.

While Pierce said European players very rarely get into other players' faces and are unlikely to get into fights, Garnett reminded his former teammate about the different upbringing they faced growing up.

"Europeans come from some real sh*t, they come from war, bro. They come from walking to school in the war, bombs, and all types. I'm dead-ass, bro," he said. "I'm talking about Serbians, I'm talking about Croatians, I'm talking about some of these foreign places. Man, some of these places..."

"You putting like American players come under some type of different cloth when European players come under a whole different way of life, bro. When you start digging through their past, and I played with a bunch of them international players, they're soft to the point that we're saying they're not aggressive as American players. They're aggressive, they're not like pushovers or no s**t," Garnett said. "That's where the assumption comes from when you say non-aggressive or whatever. That's what I'm saying."

When Pierce continued to double down on his take about Rudy Gobert, Garnett quickly interrupted.

"You still calling grown men adjectives. You're fu**ing with n**as, stop. You poking the bear."

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