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Chris Paul isn’t the best athlete I’ve ever seen in person but he’s the one I was most impressed by.
I first saw Paul play live in late January 2012 in Los Angeles against an Oklahoma team that would play in the finals that year.
In a game featuring Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Blake Griffin, Paul was the dominant force, controlling every aspect of the game. Durant and Westbrook would combine for 67 points that night but they were just pawns on Paul’s chessboard.
Paul led the Clippers to a double digit victory with 26 points and 14 assists on an impossibly efficient 12 of 16 shooting. It’s not the stats that were most impressive though, it was the sheer will and control that Paul had over the game.
He controlled every element of the game’s flow, embodying the point guard archetype. He spent the first three quarters dictating pace and tempo, setting up his teammates and getting everyone involved.
Then, when OKC made a run in the fourth quarter, Paul took over the game himself, hitting four consecutive mid-range jump shots on five possessions to end the game. Paul was hagiographic that night, giving a performance so commanding that it felt like he had written the game’s script earlier in the day and everyone was just a character in his play.
I’ve seen Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and an MVP Derrick Rose in person and none of those guys impressed me as much as Paul did that January evening.
***
Chris Paul is no longer the player he was in January 2012. Back then Paul was the closest thing there was to a consensus third best player in the league behind LeBron James and Durant. From my seat in Houston’s Toyota Center on Friday night for Clippers-Rockets, there were two players on the court who have since surpassed Paul in that discussion – James Harden and Blake Griffin.
Add in the improvements from the likes of Stephen Curry, Westbrook and Anthony Davis, and Paul has fallen from a top three player in the league to a borderline top 10 guy.
Paul no longer has the ability to consistently determine the outcomes of games by himself. He’s not the explosive scorer he once was, with age and a history of knee problems seemingly taking their toll. Paul’s best statistical season was in 2008-09 – he averaged an insane 23-11-6 that season with three steals – when he got to the line 6.7 times per game and shot just 2.3 threes a game.
Illustrating his decreased scoring aggression, this season Paul is shooting a career low 3.7 free throws a game and taking 3.4 threes. Approaching 30, Paul is in the next phase of his NBA career.
Although his explosiveness is not what it once was, Paul is still very athletic. On Friday night he still had his quick first step, his filthy handle and he can still change direction with the best of them. But now more than ever he’s getting by on guile and veteran savvy.
Along with LeBron, Paul is the most astute student of basketball in the NBA, understanding time, space and movement as well as anyone. While it’s fun watching merchants of chaos like Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis, there is a classical pleasure in seeing the majestic logic and order of Chris Paul.
Chris Paul is like ‘The Wire’, everything he does has meaning and purpose – there is no fat. This is especially clear when you watch him in person. On every possession Friday night you could see Paul’s mind at work. If I drive at Player X then Player Y will shade over here and then I can leverage his movement against him by faking a pass to Player A which will allow Player B to become open.
Paul’s decision making, economy of movement and his ability to see things before they happen, or force them to happen in advance, is unparalleled. He plays chess while 99 per cent of the league is playing checkers (or in Rajon Rondo’s case, Connect-Four).
Although he is universally revered in basketball circles, Paul’s lack of team success continues to haunt his legacy. CP3 has made approximately zero appearances in the Conference Finals, aka one less than Quincy Pondexter. Sadly, but perhaps not unfairly, the first thing that people think of when talking Chris Paul is what happened in Game 5 last season in Oklahoma City.
There’s no point sugar-coating it, Paul choked that game away by himself and cost his team the season. The beauty and tragedy of sports is that championships and legacies are decided by individual moments, events in time that account for less than 0.01 per cent of a player’s entire career. Paul could average 30 points and 15 assists this regular season and still no-one would forget Game 5. The only way to get past Game 5 is to win it the next time.
If the Clippers do win that game this year it won’t be with Chris Paul as their best player. Blake Griffin has clearly risen above Paul, and has emerged as perhaps the best successor to Paul’s former title of ‘consensus third best player in the league’.
Griffin pressed his case Friday night, putting up 30 and 10 in his sleep and overwhelming a laughably undermanned Rockets frontline. Paul played the role of quiet puppeteer, deferring to Griffin and scoring 10 points on seven shots with seven assists, five steals and no turnovers.
It was an understated performance but an ever-present one. As is always the case with Paul, you never forget that he’s on the court. While this Clippers team will only go as far as Blake Griffin can take them, it’ll be Paul getting him the ball and getting it to him in the perfect place, at the perfect time, in the perfect flow.