Clippers at Crossroads (Part 2): Chris Paul
He was the best point guard of his generation. He is one of the best ever to play his position. And yet postseason success eludes our “Point God”. What went wrong?
For Part 1 — “Once hailed as a savior, Blake Griffin has now become a symbol of everything that’s wrong with this franchise”, click here.
We are headed for another melancholic year at the “Chris Paul is the best point guard of this generation” office. Our man churned out yet another super-efficient season (albeit an injured one) and got kicked out in the first round of the playoffs by the pterodactyl-limbed Jazz. Lost in the dust of this season was another opportunity for Paul to make it past the second round in the playoffs. The noise against his case as the best point guard of the generation will increase. It’s a noise that we at the office have had to bear with for the better part of this decade.
What are the ingredients you need to make a perfect point guard?
a. He should have the vision to see the whole court
b. Someone who makes his teammates better
c. Ability to finish at the rim and have a reliable jump shot up to the three-point arc
d. Crunch time chops and the ability to rise to the occasion
e. Superb defender
f. Has the competitive fire and a natural leader of men
Guess which point guard in the history of the National Basketball Association fulfills the above-said requirements? He goes by the name of Christopher Emmanuel Paul and plays for the Los Angeles Clippers. Not Magic (never a defensive stud), not Isiah (hideous 3-point shooter, although would’ve been decent one had he played in this era, but that’s only a speculation), not Nash (worst defender of all the great point guards), not Jason Kidd (only developed an outside jumper when he was past his prime) and not Stephen Curry (slightly better than Nash defensively but that’s not a compliment).
(Note: This doesn’t mean he’s better than all those players)
If you look with an unbiased view, Paul is a perfect point guard in every sense. There’s no hole in his game that you can game plan against. The only real knock against him is his 6 feet stature that disables him from seeing over the top of defenses and fling cross court passes that LeBron and Jokic do with ease. That’s it! Put him in any era and he thrives. The list of A-list guards you can say that about is not very long.
He has delivered the most consistent stretch of basketball ever witnessed at his position. These are his per 36 minutes stats separated by 9 years:
Chris Paul (Year 3): 20.2 PPG, 11.1 APG, 3.8 RPG, 2.6 SPG, 48.8 FG% and 36.9 3P%
Chris Paul (Year 12): 20.7 PPG, 10.6 APG, 5.7 RPG, 2.2 SPG, 47.6 FG% and 41.1 3P%
That’s LeBron, Duncan, Malone and Kareem-like freaky consistency. Isiah and Magic were out of the league after year 13, Nash and Curry were late bloomers and Kidd and Stockton were never the primary scoring options on their respective options (Kidd has only one season in which his per 36 PPG were higher than 18 career while Stockton has 0 such season).
He is 6th in PER in NBA history (the highest among point guards), second in assist percentage, ninth in steal percentage, 1st in offensive rating (!!!), 2nd among point guards in offensive win shares and third in offensive box plus/minus, trailing only Jordan and LeBron. All this to go along with the fact that he is third in assists per game, sixth in steals per game in NBA history and a legitimate shot at being the first player in the history of the game to finish with 20,000 points, 10,000 assists and 2000 steals. Let that sink in a moment. And despite all these accomplishments, our Point God has turned into the new president of the “Great Players who Failed to Win the Ringz” club.
Kevin Garnett was one of the best defensive players ever and one of the greatest power forwards in the history of NBA and yet until his move to the Boston, we had no idea how good he really was. During his time in Minnesota, he played with three All-Stars and his best teammates were — Tom Gugliotta, Sam Cassell, Wally Szczebiak, Joe Smith, Stephon Marbury, Terrel Brandon, and Latrell Sprewell (the first three were All-Stars). In his 12 seasons in ‘Sota, his team won 52.6% of their games, getting swept in the first round for seven consecutive years, missing the playoffs three times and making it past the second round only once (in his MVP season). So this is “The Big Ticket Torture Chamber”, and a player is eligible for entry in this chamber only if he is a tortured genius stuck on badly run franchise with a poor supporting cast.
Chris Paul was the sole occupant of this chamber for his entire stay in New Orleans. His team during that span had a winning percentage of 0.538. His best teammates were — David West, Peja Stojakovic, Chandler, Okafor, Ariza and Desmond Mason. David West was the only one who had an All-Star appearance (he did it twice) while Paul was in NOLA. He never made it past the second round and the closest he came was in ’08 (the year he finished second in MVP voting but should’ve won) when his team lost a Game 7 at home to the Spurs in the second round.
When people will look back at that postseason, they will lament him for losing Game 7 at the home floor. What they won’t pay attention to is that he outplayed in-his-prime Tony Parker in that series. He churned out 24–11–4 along with 2.5 steals, while shooting over 50% from the field. Parker for that series was 19–6–4, shot 48% from the field and played some hideous defense. Or that Spurs had a deeper and better roster in that series. Or that his power forward (and the second best player on the team) shot 45% from the field during the series. Or that in the closeout game against the Mavericks in the first round, he had a stat line of 24–15–11 while shooting 52% from the field. He lost Game 7 on his home court and that’s all that matter.
The next season he got injured in the middle of the first round series against the Nuggets and was brushed aside in five games. He averaged 22–12 the following year against the defending champions Lakers in the first round but the hopelessly undermanned Hornets were dispatched in a six-game, surprisingly competitive series.
Once he moved to Los Angeles, everybody thought that being paired with one of the most exciting prospects in the league will be enough to get over the hump of the second round. This was supposed to be his Celtics. He was finally free to do things that he was best at — making his teammates better, playing awesome defense, being a leader on the floor and taking over a close game in the last six minutes — without the pressure of scoring every trip down the floor. He probably didn’t know that he was signing up for six of the most cursed seasons ever incurred by an NBA superstar.
The Clippers took care of the Grizzlies, with Paul going bonkers down the stretch in Game 4 and winning Game 7 on the road. That series also came at a cost as he played the second round with a jammed finger and a hip flexor, and the Spurs swept them aside in four easy games (not that the injury had anything to with the outcome of the series. The Spurs would’ve spanked them anyway).
In 2013, Basketball Gods sidelined Griffin with a severe ankle sprain in the first round rematch against the Grizzlies and Paul couldn’t prevent the inevitable defeat despite averaging 32 points on over 50% shooting from the field. The series would’ve been over even earlier had Paul not salvaged Game 2 by hitting three clutch shots in the last 150 seconds of the game including the buzzer beater. The Clippers were done and dusted in six games and we at the club were left to look forward to the next season. Spoiler Alert: It was not pretty.
The Clippers did out-duel the Warriors amidst the whole Sterling saga (the biggest off court incident to affect the NBA since Magic revealed that he was HIV+) but our man was stripped naked by a pre-MVP Steph Curry. Curry threw up 23–8 in the series while CP3 was limited to 17–9 as his shooting percentage plummeted from the regular season mark of 47% to 44%. But the worst was yet to come. After being outplayed for the second consecutive series in a row (CP3 averaged 23–12 while Brodie went for 28–9 including 38–6–5 in the closeout game at the Staples Center), he had the worst 30 seconds of any NBA superstar (those were also the most painful 30 seconds I’ve ever endured in my life). With the series tied at 2–2, he committed two unforgiving turnovers and one boneheaded foul on a three-point attempt by Westbrook at the end of Game 5.
Couple that up with his team’s complete meltdown in the second round against the Rockets next year and Steph Curry’s meteoric rise to the top echelon of the NBA, the ship carrying the banner “Chris Paul is the greatest point guard of his generation” had already sailed. And when Blake Griffin got injured during two consecutive postseasons following that humiliating exit against the Rockets, that ship sunk faster than Titanic.
Now here we are, 12 years and nine brutal postseasons later, still unsure of his position in the pantheon of NBA point guards. He has the most well rounded game of any point guard to ever step on the hardwood. His fadeaway jumpshot after snaking into the mid-range, coming off a pick is the most reliable shot at his position in the history of the game. And despite his teams failures he has been clutch in the postseason. He shoots nearly 50% from the field in the “clutch” situations. His injury-hobbled and gutsy Game 7 performance against the Spurs in a seven-game classic was one for the ages. So was his fall-away banker off the glass over Danny Green and Tim Duncan. That was the pedestal over which his “Point God” statue was supposed to be built on.
Yes, he has never made it past the second round, but except for the second round series against Houston couple of seasons ago, his team always lost to a better team. Blake Griffin was envisioned as his perfect running mate, someone who would share the offensive load with him. But he gave him one awesome regular season (the year he finished second in MVP) and one super-awesome postseason (the year they knocked out the Spurs). Between Blake’s injuries and his awkward fit in the modern NBA, DeAndre’s offensive limits and Doc’s poor job to assemble a decent supporting cast while demolishing the future picks, Paul was stuck between a flawed roster and a bleak future. Is it really his fault if Doc Rivers has Reddick, Crawford and Paul Pierce playing together, crucial playoffs minutes? Did you know that Raymond “Donut” Felton was the best backup point guard he has ever had as a member of the Clippers?
Only three teams have won the NBA championships with the point guard being the best player in the team — Magic (in ’87 and ’88), Isiah (’89 and ’90) and Curry (2015). Magic still had Kareem during those two championship seasons by his side and Isiah and Curry found the perfect roster that complemented them in every way possible. Jason Kidd rode Dirk’s back en route to his only championship. “The Big O” needed Lew Alcindor (Kareem is probably the only person on this planet to have two awesome names) to grab a ring, Frazier had Reed, Cousy had Russell and Stockton had Malone (unfortunately for Stockton, Malone is the head of the “great power forwards who sucked in crunch time situations” club).
Inject Nash with truth serum and ask him if would’ve swapped Stoudemire with a more well-rounded center, and trust me the answer would surprise you. Duncan torched them with series averages of 27–14–2, 27–14–4 and 25–14–2 in the three series Nash went up against him (yes Amar’e held his own offensively but he was a defensive liability and I’m being generous here).
Point guards, even the great ones needed historically great sidekicks or co-companions to get over the hump. But here’s the catch, nobody is asking him to make a run at the Larry o’Brien trophy. We brush aside people who judge players by the rings, but shouldn’t there be a sweet spot?
If he indeed is the Point God, with the season on the line in Game 7 at home, where he is clearly the best player on the planet, against a well-balanced Jazz team, shouldn’t he have carried the whole team on his back and put up a 40–10? Maybe he saw the writing wall. Since he is always a step ahead of everyone, maybe he saw the torture that awaited them in the next series against the Warriors. Maybe he believed that bowing out in seven respectable games against the Jazz will be better than being sacrificed on national television in four brutal games in the second round. Or maybe after 12 years of churning out one efficient season after another, he just couldn’t do it.
The Western Conference over the years has defined the careers of several superstars. Dirk had the perfect roster around him and the luck of catching the Heatles in their first year together while the top-seeded Spurs knocked out by the Grizzlies, for winning his sole championship. He was uber-clutch and heat-checked teams out of the series but because he couldn’t get out of the gauntlet out in the West, we labelled him “soft”. Ditto with Kevin Garnett, although with the exception of Game 7 against the Kings in 2004 semifinals, he was uber-not so clutch. Carmelo Anthony made it to the Conference Finals only once with his Nuggets and somehow managed to have a worse record in the Eastern Conference (although Deron Williams would like to have a say in that matter).
Damian Lillard and Anthony Davis are learning that lesson too. In his five years in the Association, Davis has made it to the playoffs only once, getting mercilessly swept by the Warriors. If he indeed is the superstar and the MVP-caliber player that we all deem him to be, he better start be playing deep into May over the next few seasons. Heck, even Kevin Durant who will go down as one of most efficient non-center scores in the history of the NBA was forced to turn heel and join the 73-win Warriors team.
I hope Paul keeps all this in perspective before inking that 5 year $200 million contract under the “Chris Paul Old Age Rule”. He could go the Carmelo route and basically lock the rest of whatever prime years he’s left with, with the most cursed franchise in the sports history. Or he could tag along with the Spurs or the Bucks (!!!) to finally wipe the stain of never making to the Conference Finals off his resume.
There’s no wrong choice here. Gone are the days of bombardment of superstars when they jump ship to win a ring or two. We all apparently understand the psychology of the players and empathize with them. And nobody will write a 2000-word piece about how Paul chose money over NBA glory because leaving $70 million on the table is tough for anybody.
Whatever the case maybe, what we all will remember is that he finally had the chance to shape the narrative of his career, to run away from the most cursed franchise in the history of sports. Whether it was for the better or for the worse, remains to be seen.
Part 3 will drop on Sunday.
