We sat in various parts of Terminal C in New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport in February 2010, everyone waiting for a flight to Dallas for the NBA All-Star Game. I heard the wheels and looked left. Paul Pierce, a hand clamped on each wheel, edged past the suitcases and extended legs of passengers, expertly swirling as if he had been practicing these wheelchair moves. He had a strained left foot. He probably had no business playing in that All-Star Game. Phil Jackson had hung the drama queen label on Pierce after Game 1 of the 2008 Finals, when Pierce was helped into a wheelchair after leaving the floor in the third quarter, and returned in the fourth to bury back-to-back...
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