Winning a world championship gets you a lot of things-a big shiny trophy, a Duck Boat parade, face time with Stuart Scott. It also gets you validation. It is a strange world we live in when Charles Barkley and Karl Malone have the lack of a title engraved on their hoops tombstone, but Pat Cummings gets off scot-free.

Which brings us to Paul Pierce. Before last season, the Captain was never placed in the celestial orbit with Sir Charles and The Mailman. Good player? Yup. Very good player? No question. Star? Sure. Superstar? Eh.

"Paul always was a great player who had been on teams that he was carrying," Celtics Managing Partner Steve Pagliuca told me this summer. "It is hard for the fans to comprehend how hard it is to win when you have to score 35 points, and you have to take the best guys on the defensive end. You could argue that Paul was the best player in the league last year. He played even-up with LeBron in one of the great games of his life, and he matched up even with Kobe (in the Finals)."

Before the epic Game 7 against LeBron James and the Cavs, Pierce's rep was still in need of repair after the "menacing gesture" episode in Atlanta. But all was quickly forgotten and forgiven in the wake of The Duel: Part II. After the game I wrote on Boston Magazine's blog that Game 7 would be the lead sentence in his basketball obit.

But then he led the comeback against the Pistons, and notably did not lose his mind after Bennett Salavatore called him for an offensive foul on that should-have-been four-point play. Then he outplayed Kobe Bean Bryant in the Finals, won the MVP, and we went right to the night when the Celtics will retire his jersey.

It happened so fast that we barely had time to consider that even without a championship, Pierce's legacy as an all-timer should have been secure. Forget the playoffs for a moment. These are the facts as they relate to Paul Anthony Pierce, aka The Truth.

Six-time All-Star
Three-time All-NBA Third Team
23 points per game, 6 rebounds and 4 assists

These are the facts as they relate to Pierce's time with the Celtics.

Games Played: Tenth
Assists: Eighth
Steals: Second
Blocks: Fourth
Points: Sixth
Scoring Average: Second

Allowing for good health, Pierce will move past Bob Cousy, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish this season into third-place on the Celtics all-time scoring list behind only Larry Bird and John Havlicek, and he is 131 rebounds shy of moving past Cousy into 10th place on the all-time rebounding list.

When that happens this will be the revised list of players who rank in the Celtics career Top 10 in points, rebounds, and assists:

Bill Russell
Dave Cowens
John Havlicek
Larry Bird
Paul Pierce

He has had an extraordinary career, but there always seemed to be something that held back the public perception of Pierce. We all know the list: The stabbing, the bandage, the hunched shoulders and the withering looks of derision.

When the Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen trades went down, there were people who wondered how Pierce would take it. Would he mind not being The Man? Would it bother him if KG got the MVP attention, or if Ray got the last-second shot? It didn't, as it turned out, and Pierce never really got the credit he deserved for seamlessly assimilating into the team fabric and for tweaking his game.

Not that he doesn't notice things. Pierce is a proud guy. Last April when Garnett was named Defensive Player of the Year, Pierce was asked about his rep as a less-than willing defender. Without missing a beat he said, "When you play on bad defensive teams, you get labeled as a bad defensive player."

Before Game 5 out in LA, someone asked him how he compared with Carmelo Anthony, the implication being that Carmelo needed to grow up, like Pierce, who understood the subtext of the loaded question immediately. "Well," he said. "I never got a DUI."

It was telling that this was his quote after the Celtics won the championship: "If I was going to be one of the best Celtics to ever play, I had to put up a banner."

In many ways, it shouldn't have had to come to that, but it is a moot point anyway. He's got the ring, he's got the banner, and he'll have the jersey ceremony one day too.

Paul Flannery covers the Celtics for WEEI.com.