It is extremely important since it discover the existence of irrational numbers!
When developing the pyth. theorem, the people know only the rational numbers (rational lengths can be constructed and measured in simple way, of course) However, when this theorem is proved, they find that there is some number (e.g. square root of 2) cannot be constructed
(Note: consider a right-angled triangle with both adjacent and opposite sides equal to 1, you can prove square root 2 is not rational by contradiction...)
After this, they aware the existance of irrational number. As a result, they study more on the irrational numbers, and thus the real number system is formed.