Although drafted a year apart by the Celtics, Billups and Pierce never played together. They instead became rivals when the Celtics faced off against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Billups retired in 2014 after 17 NBA seasons, a potential Hall of Fame career whose No. 1 was retired by the Pistons.

If Rick Pitino had shown any patience and given his rookie guard time to develop, the Celtics could have had Chauncey Billups and Paul Pierce in the same starting lineup.

No. 3 overall pick Chauncey Billups spent less than a season in Boston before he was shipped off to Toronto.

Yet Billups played just 51 games with the Celtics. That’s how long Pitino gave the 21-year-old rookie before shipping him to Toronto for Kenny Anderson. That began a four-teams-in-five-year journey, before Billups landed in Detroit and cemented himself as an elite guard.


Boston was the beginning of that journey, something Billups hasn’t forgotten despite an illustrious career.

“I didn’t [do anything wrong in Boston] and I really wanted that to work out,” he said. “I wanted that Boston thing to work out. You’re the third pick in the [1997] draft and you come and you think you’re going to be there for a long time, and most guys that get picked that high are. It didn’t work out and it was tough.

“But the one thing that I will say is when I did get traded and I didn’t know any different at the time, at least when Rick came to be, he was honest with me. He told me, ‘Chaunce, look, I still think you’re going to be a great player in the league. There’s a lot of pressure on me to make the playoffs and I need a veteran point guard. I’ve really always been a big fan of Kenny Anderson.’ ”

It wasn’t Billups’s last trade, but the fact he played less than a season in Boston, never getting a chance to get comfortable or make an impact with the Celtics, lingers in his mind.


Celtics coach Rick Pitino posed with (from left) Ron Mercer, Antoine Walker, and Chauncey Billups during Celtics media day in 1997. Elise Amendola/Associated Press/File

“[Pitino] was honest with me, which I respected,” Billups said. “But at the same time I just wish he would have been not honest but patient with me. Because honestly, I was starting to play well. I was starting to figure out how he wanted his point guard to play. The fans, I thought, really liked me and I thought it could have been a good, long, strong relationship. But it didn’t pan out and everything happens for a reason.”

Billups played just 29 games in Toronto before being traded to his hometown Nuggets in January 1999. A little more than a year later he was shipped to Orlando, where he never played a game. In the summer of 2000, he signed with Minnesota as free agent, before finally making it in the summer of 2002 to Detroit, where he spent six seasons as the Pistons reached the Eastern Conference finals each year.

Teams have even less patience with younger players now than in Billups’s time. There are plenty of lottery picks getting shipped elsewhere within a couple of years because they are poor fits and are forced to fight for their NBA lives instead of trying to make All-Star teams. Billups was a classic late bloomer, but he also faced difficult situations and impatient coaches.

“For one, all of my trades and all of my moves, every single team [saw] a good dude,” Billups said. “They [saw] a good dude that works his butt off but early on wasn’t quite good enough, just wasn’t ready yet.”


Billups said his career took off during his stint in Minnesota, where he not only played with future Celtic Kevin Garnett but also mentor Sam Mitchell and sparkling point guard Terrell Brandon, whose career was derailed by knee issues.

Chauncey Billups and Kevin Garnett played together in Minnesota from 2000-02. Andrees Latif/Reuters/File 2001

“Sam taught me to be a pro,” Billups said. “How to get to the gym early, how to stay late, how to dress, how to be a professional. Terrell Brandon taught me how to really be a point guard, how to really manage a basketball game, how to study your opponent, how to study film. Those two dudes saved my NBA life. They changed my trajectory. It didn’t just happen in Detroit, a lot went into that.”

And like Pierce, who is now with the Clippers and who will play his final game at TD Garden on Sunday, Billups said at the end he had to listen to his body and understand that his NBA time was done.

“There’s a feeling that you have, there’s a series of things that may happen during a game,” Billups said. “It may be like, ‘Damn, I used to be able to get to that ball.’ When your main move that nobody could ever guard don’t get you open no more, that’s an example of it’s about to be that time.

“It’s always hard because this is the only thing you’ve ever done. A great player like Paul, who’s been dominant since 16 years old and then you can’t do that no more, it’s an adjustment to be made there. You have to have a sense of reality yourself to be able to deal with it. Paul’s probably been there for a year or two and he probably knows that. But you want to go out on your own terms, which is something I think he’s happy he can do.”


Life after basketball is difficult for some former players, but Billups said he began thinking about it in the middle of his career. He owns 31 Wendy’s restaurants and has various other business ventures. He also works as an analyst for ESPN.

“The way my career was going, I didn’t know how long it was going to last,” he said. “I had to start thinking what I wanted to do, do I want to coach? Work in the game? Do the GM thing? Or do I just want to get all the way from everything?

“For me, it wasn’t tough to get away from the game. I played 17 years and I gave all I had. People ask me all the time if I miss playing, and I don’t miss playing. What I do miss is the locker room and the camaraderie with the guys, getting to know people . . . that’s what you do miss.

“I could go play basketball anywhere, but you miss the brotherhood, that’s something you’re always going to have a hard time recapturing.”


JUMPING BACK IN

Gordon not just a dunking machine

Aaron Gordon is averaging 11.4 points per game in his third season on 43.1 percent shooting. Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press/File

Aaron Gordon decided to enter the Slam Dunk competition on All-Star Saturday for a second consecutive year after losing an epic final-round showdown with Minnesota’s Zach LaVine in Toronto. But Gordon is more than a dunker, and he’s striving to cement his place as a defensive-minded forward for the struggling Magic.

In the 2014 draft, the Celtics had Gordon on their radar with the sixth overall pick, but he went fourth to Orlando and Boston ended up with Marcus Smart. Gordon is a freakish athlete who relishes playing defense, but his offensive game has come methodically as he is averaging 11.4 points per game in his third season on 43.1 percent shooting.

NBA development is a process, even for a player with Gordon’s physical tools. Defensively, he has always been confident and has no issue checking the opposing team’s best offensive player.

“There’s no pressure at all, you just need to make sure your energy is high,” Gordon said. “Make sure your body is good, and do the best that you can and it results in good defense. I think my size and my foot speed is something I’ve been gifted and I just try to get the most out of it.”

With LaVine passing on this year’s dunk contest after back-to-back wins, and now out for the season after tearing his ACL, Gordon is the favorite. Gordon said last year’s contest did not take any long-term toll, which is something Celtics rookie Jaylen Brown feared when he considered entering.

“The toll it takes is the build-up and during the dunk contest,” Gordon said. “And a couple of days after, you are a little sore. But throughout the whole rest of the season, you’re fine.”

As for this year, Gordon said, “I don’t know what else I have left up my sleeve or in the tank, dunking-wise. I’d like to focus on the Orlando Magic and game play. That’s my main priority right now.”

Obviously, the lure of winning and the excitement from the event encouraged Gordon to return.

“It’s incredibly special just to be out there,” he said. “To trust your skills, to grow up wanting to be in the dunk contest and finally doing it and performing at such a high level is an incredible feeling.”

Gordon is mainly known as a dunker, and perhaps one reason LaVine passed on returning is his desire to avoid such a label. That is not an issue for Gordon.

“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “People put labels where they see fit. The reputation of me being a dunker, that’s fine. I have plenty of other tools in my bag and aspects to my game that I’m not concerned about that.”

Said coach Magic Frank Vogel of Gordon: “I think he’s done a great job defending perimeter players. He’s played a lot of power forward his first two years in the league and he’s kind of an undersized power forward but has great size for a small forward and that wing defender that everybody needs. That’s the role we’ve sort of carved out for him. Every night he’s going to take the other team’s best perimeter player, whether it’s a 6-9 guy or a 6-4 guy. He’s going to draw that assignment and he’s done a great job with that.”

Vogel is in his first season in Orlando after a successful run with Indiana. The Magic, however, have been one of the league’s more disappointing teams, despite the additions of free agents Jeff Green, D.J. Augustin, and Bismack Biyombo, and trade acquisition Serge Ibaka.

Vogel is in the position of having to nurture talent and win simultaneously. Ibaka is a free agent this summer, as is the well-traveled Green.

The Magic are loaded with prospects but lack star power.

“What it comes down to is we’re still trying to learn how to win,” Vogel said. “We’ve had some guys who had success with other teams. Our young guys have not had that here and it’s about developing individually but collectively as a group, finding ways to win games, learning how to win.”

ETC.

Lillard not one to shun challenges

Damian Lillard is averaging 25.9 points per game, eighth in the league. Steve Dykes/Associated Press/File

The Trail Blazers are having a trying season, and Damian Lillard was left off the Western Conference All-Star team for the second straight year. Perhaps if the Blazers were having a better season, Lillard would be an All-Star cinch. Instead, he’s focused on getting his team to the postseason.

With the additions of Evan Turner and Festus Ezeli and the re-signings of Meyers Leonard and Allen Crabbe, the Blazers were projected to win the Northwest Division and compete for a top-four playoff seed. Instead, they are fighting for the No. 8 seed.

Lillard is trying to galvanize his team for a postseason push, and Portland entered play Friday with four wins in its last five games, starting with an OT victory over the Celtics at TD Garden Jan. 21. The loss was to the Warriors by 2 points.

“It hasn’t been a challenge to get the guys together because we truly have a tight-knit group,” Lillard said. “We created a great work environment, showing up every day. We enjoy coming to the practice facility and we enjoy being around each other, so I don’t think it’s been tough as a leader keeping the team together.

“It’s been tough to deal with the ups and downs and us not being steady. When that happens, everybody looks to me. And that’s been the hard part. We know we’re working hard together and we’re just trying to figure out what do we need to do, why aren’t we figuring it out faster? That’s been the toughest part, been the biggest challenge.”

Lillard is the face of the franchise. He was a virtual unknown out of Weber State when he entered the 2012 draft as a fourth-year junior. He was drafted sixth overall by Portland, directly behind more-hyped players Dion Waiters and Thomas Robinson.

Lillard always has had something to prove in leading the small-market Blazers. Portland’s push toward the top of the West took a hit when LaMarcus Aldridge left for San Antonio in free agency two years ago, but Portland made a surprising trip to the conference semifinals last season. That placed Lillard on an elevated stage, but staying there has been a struggle.

“That has kind of been the thing attached to me my entire career,” Lillard said about playing with a chip on his shoulder. “But you’ve got to have that chip. I think that chip is more so edge than anything else, just understanding the challenge you’re going to see every night. It’s not so much everybody doubting me, it goes to just having that edge.

“Nobody looks at us as a team capable of winning a championship. They don’t look at [me] as an MVP, those kind of things. That’s more what it’s about.”

Lillard has endured All-Star and Olympic snubs, but he has become a marketable face. He is in numerous commercials and recently released a rap album. Small-market players usually don’t earn such accolades.

“I get a lot of respect,” he said. “I feel like I deserved that, I’ve earned it, just through my hard work and my production and what I’ve been able to do consistently since I came in the league. Also, standing up through the struggles and the great times. I’m never going to run from it. I’m never going to shy away from it. I think when you do those things, it makes it all better in the end.

“My success on the court with this organization, everything I see, that’s me reaping the benefits of everything I embody.”

Layups

Roy Hibbert is a free agent this summer. Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

The Bucks traded center Miles Plumlee just a few months after signing him to a four-year, $48 million extension, sending him to the Hornets for veteran big men Spencer Hawes and Roy Hibbert. For Charlotte to take on Plumlee’s contract, that says a lot about its dissatisfaction with Hibbert and Hawes. Hibbert signed a one-year, $5 million deal in an attempt to resurrect his career, but instead lost his starting slot and fell out of the rotation. Hawes, a former one-and-done from the University of Washington, is shooting just 29.1 percent on 3-pointers this season as a floor-stretching center. The trade benefits Milwaukee in that it rids itself of the long-term commitment to Plumlee. Hibbert is a free agent this summer, and Hawes has a player option for $6 million that he almost certainly will exercise . . . The Bucks are being patient with swingman Khris Middleton, who hasn’t played this season because of a torn hamstring but is close to practicing and could return by the middle of the month. The Bucks had lost nine of their last 10 games entering Friday and there is a sense of urgency to become more efficient late in games. Milwaukee’s 21-27 record through Thursday was misleading because its average point differential was just minus-0.2. That means it could use another closer down the stretch, and Middleton could be that guy to take some of the burden off of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker.

The top seven teams in the West have separated from the pack, leaving eight teams to vie for one playoff spot, all separated by 6½ games entering Friday. Even the lowly Suns, who are 5-28 against the West, are still in contention. The hottest team of that bunch is the Mavericks, who had won eight of their last 11 entering Friday, including back-to-back victories over Cleveland and San Antonio. The Mavericks don’t intend to hold a fire sale unless they can get draft picks or young assets in return. Dallas may have a find in undrafted rookie guard Yogi Ferrell, who has started three games since signing a 10-day contract and is averaging 13 points.

Productive option

Paul Millsap has become a go-to player for the Hawks. Against the Knicks on Jan. 29, the forward had 37 points, 19 rebounds, and 7 assists, becoming the fifth player since 1983-84 to reach those marks.

Compiled by Michael Grossi

Gary Washburn can be reached at gwashburn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GwashburnGlobe. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.