NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce arrested on suspicion of DUI

Shreyas Laddha, The Kansas City Star on Oct 9, 2025

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Former Kansas Jayhawks basketball star and NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the California Highway Patrol.

TMZ was first to report the news. Pierce, 47, was found sleeping behind the wheel of his car in the middle of a Southern California freeway, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) said.

The TMZ report cites the CHP as saying Pierce was found around 11:35 p.m. in a Range Rover on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley. According to multiple reports, several lanes of the highway were closed while officers were investigating an unrelated multi-car crash.

“As traffic lanes reopened, officers saw a Range Rover SUV stopped in traffic lanes south of the crash scene,” CHP said in a news release. “When officers approached, they found the driver, later identified as Paul Pierce, asleep at the wheel.”

Pierce played 19 seasons in the NBA, 15 of them with the Boston Celtics. He won an NBA championship and Finals MVP in 2008. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.

Before his long career in the NBA, Pierce played three years with the Jayhawks. He was a consensus first-team All-America selection at KU in 1998.

He is one of just seven KU players to score more than 700 points in a season. Pierce was selected No. 10 overall by Boston in the 1998 NBA draft.

In May, Pierce made headlines for walking 20.2 miles from his home to the Fox TV studios in L.A. to make good on a lost wager. The bet? That his Celtics would beat the Knicks in Game 2 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals. New York won, 91-90.