All great NBA players have nicknames. Most are conferred. LeBron James rocks the title of “The King”, Tim Duncan was called “The Big Fundamental” by his Laker rival Shaq, Paul George’s handle is a clever play on his initials “PG13”, Steph Curry is known as the “Baby Assassin”, Kobe Bryant used the “Black Mamba” name to run his brand and even though he doesn’t like it, Kevin Durant is nicknamed the “Durantula”.
Some nicknames, though, are earned and no one has earned a more intimidating moniker than Chris Paul – “Point God.”
A quick Google search will give you about a few million results, the first of which will be an impressively written article talking about Chris Paul’s agility, IQ, handles and all round ability to run the most talented position on the floor this decade. A quick search on YouTube though makes a much more lasting impression.
Uhhhhh, who?
Chris Paul plays for the Los Angeles Clippers and has seen success in every level of basketball. From when he was a rookie and led all rookies in points, assists, steals and double doubles, winning Rookie of the Year, to a full-fledged player in the NBA who made nine All-Star teams, led the NBA in assists four times, led it in steals six times, got selected for four All-NBA First Teams, three All-NBA Second Teams, six All-NBA Defensive Teams and won two gold medals for the US.
Off the court, Paul led the way as well, becoming President of the NBA Players Association and being one of the highest-paid athletes in the world, with sponsorships from Nike and State Farm.
However, for all the success he’s earned in the NBA, Paul has one glaring fault that critics will immediately fall back on whenever his name is brought up in the discussion of the all-time greats, and it’s that he’s never made it past the second round of the Playoffs.
And as the 32-year-old becomes a free agent this year, he has the chance to shape his legacy over the next half decade. Courtesy of the new CBA, which I’ve explained here, Paul has the ability to pull a salary of over $200 million over the next five years with the Los Angeles Clippers. This is slightly untimely for Paul though, as his teammate, Blake Griffin, also a former All-Star and Rookie of the Year, who also qualifies for a max contract, enters free agency as well.
As the President of the NBA Players Association, Paul undoubtedly played a key role in shaping the Collective Bargaining Agreement that led to this particular contract that will, in his defense, benefit various players besides him, which means everybody’s asking the same question. Is the Point God going to chase Championship rings, or is he going to chase a salary that’ll allow him to buy a bunch of normal ones?
The Curse of the Clips
To understand the complexity of this decision, we must first take a closer look at Paul’s team, the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers are a complicated bunch to explain, probably because there hasn’t been a team in the NBA who’ve simultaneously been as hated and somehow as unlucky as the Clippers in recent memory.
The Clippers trace their roots to San Diego, where they had the same name and who then shifted to LA, sharing a town and an arena with the basketball royalty that was the Lakers. For the longest time, LAC has been the black sheep of Los Angeles, so much so that even the thought of sharing the Staples Center was a symbol of insult to the Laker nation.
Even today, in the heydey of the ghost of Kobe Bryant and after half a decade of continued success with their Big 3 of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, the word “Clippers” is still a synonym for weakness, choking, flopping and failure to the basketball world.
While a lot of the Clippers fate has been just bad luck because of untimely injuries in the Playoffs, they somehow always seem to antagonise surrounding fanbases.
Whether it’s the whining, the constant flopping, the incessant complaining to the referees, the racism of the owners, how the nepotistic Head Coach brings his own son into the roster, the fact that players injure themselves while assaulting their own staff or if it’s straight up jealousy, these individual pieces who’re loved and revered as basketball greats by the media alike come together to form a machine of pure evil and in his twelfth season in the NBA, it must get tiring for Paul.
The Clippers also have four of their starters, Paul included, entering free agency this year, JJ Reddick, Griffin and swingman Luc Mbah a Moute. While Reddick isn’t a household name, he is the perfect addition for almost any NBA team, a high IQ guard, a laser 3 Point shooter (Led the league in 3-Point percentage last year, shooting 47.5% from deep) who can space the floor and defend at an above average level is heavily coveted in the modern, fast-paced NBA.
With the salary cap rising and in a world where the Philadelphia 76’ers were ready to throw upwards of $30 million on the ageing Manu Ginobili, it isn’t a stretch to say Reddick is going to be making some ridiculous money next year, which the Clippers probably won’t be able to match.
Griffin was once an MVP calibre player, his explosive scoring, passing and rebounding making him a prized possession for the Clippers. Since then, however, he’s had a slew of injuries and disagreements with the front office and staff that have made him seem like a misguided match for Los Angeles.
Make no mistake though, Griffin is still a superstar, a player who would make almost any team he went to much better; he’s diversified his skill set beyond simple dunking, even smoothening out his three-point game and is bound to be offered multiple max contracts by opposing teams. Assuming the Clippers re-sign everybody this year and go into next year the way they are, their finances would look like this.
Player | 2017-18 Salary Estimates |
Chris Paul | $34,303,241 |
Blake Griffin | $30,211,259 |
DeAndre Jordan | $22,642,350 |
Jamal Crawford | $14,246,988 |
Austin Rivers | $11,825,000 |
J.J. Redick | $11,066,250 |
Wesley Johnson | $5,881,260 |
Luc Mbah a Moute | $2,863,900 |
Brice Johnson | $1,331,160 |
Diamond Stone | $1,312,611 |
Taxpayer MLE | $5,192,000 |
Empty Roster Charge | $815,615 |
Stretched Money | $1,412,964 |
Total | $143,104,598 |
Projected Salary Cap | $101,000,000 |
Cap Space | -$42,104,598 |
All this lack of money and hate wouldn’t be a problem if the Clippers won at an elite level. Everyone hated Jordan’s 96 Bulls, the Heat and LeBron were villainized when they won and ridiculed every time they lost, players wanted to punch Kobe in the face every time he took the floor, but the common denominator between these teams and players is that they won and kept winning.
The Clippers, though, are members of a stacked Western Conference that feature the likes of the virtually unbeatable Golden State Warriors, the 50+ win for the past twenty years San Antonio Spurs and the run and gun Houston Rockets.
Even on their best day, the Clippers are just a second-rate version of the Warriors and will probably never see anything more than the second round anytime soon. Much like the Raptors then, the Clippers face a similar conundrum, why bother blowing cash on a team that will never win a championship?
But the Clippers have a secret weapon and it presents itself as one of the worst CEO's in Microsoft's history, Steve Ballmer. After Donald Sterling was handed a lifetime ban for his racist comments by Adam Silver, Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers to a third party in a last-ditch effort.
And who else to buy it than the man who thought that Windows Vista and the Nokia Lumia was a good idea? Ballmer bought the franchise for an eye-watering $2 billion dollars and then some. For all these financial fallacies though, Ballmer is an avid fan of the NBA and is usually present at all Clipper games, cheering his team on and looking like he’s going to have a heart attack any minute.
Plus, him being worth $30 billion helps. Ballmer on multiple occasions has spoken about how he isn’t going to cheap out on the Clippers, how he’ll do whatever needs to be done for the team, including going deep into the red and that’s why he’s their secret weapon, because he can afford to do what other owners simply can’t and in any other franchise, that green light would be enough to build a championship winning team like the ’08 Celtics.
Unlike the Raptors, however, the Clippers’ problems are beyond simple salary cap shortages. Lowry has already talked about opting out and chasing rings, knowing full well that he probably won’t get one in the Eastern Conference for as long as LeBron James is healthy.
There are very few teams in the Western Conference who have both, the need for an elite point guard and are in the position to contend for a championship. If Chris Paul chooses to opt out of his contract and become a free agent though, Lowry is in a bit of trouble. For, however good Lowry is, there’s no denying that Paul is much better and less injury prone, with the kind of discipline, dedication and drive that top calibre teams are made of.
Paul is also just a year older, with a much better track record in a much harder conference and is bound to be the first choice for teams if it comes down to him and Lowry. There is also the issue of Playoff performance. For all the flak that Paul gets for not making it out of the second round, he has always competed on a high level, putting up points, assists and steals on par with his regular season averages and more.
If, however, the Raptors choose to sign Lowry on a max contract this year, they will have the highest paid backcourt in the history of the league and will give up 70% of their cap space to teammates who averaged 39/29/82 over the course of the Playoffs.
Where does he go from here?
So, does there exist a team for Paul that fit all the aforementioned requirements, championship contention, history of excellence, a chance of beating the Warriors and a requirement for an elite point guard on an already great team?
Just as it turns out, there is! The San Antonio Spurs, the league’s poster child for sustained superiority have made the Playoffs every year for 20 years and show no signs of stopping after winning a franchise record 61 games in the regular season.
Coincidentally, for CP3 too, the Spurs lost their star point guard Tony Parker to a potentially career ending injury during the second round of the Playoffs against Houston, when Tony suffered a ruptured left quadriceps tendon that put him out of Round 2.
Paul fits a lot of the Spur-like tendencies, he’s a great defender, with a team first attitude who makes everyone better when he’s on the floor. He’s also an exceptional passer, a true point guard who facilitates the game with the work ethic of a farm horse and a great second option scorer for a team that already has Kawhi Leonard.
The Spurs even have the necessary cap space to sign Paul, since Parker’s ($15.5 million) contract can be dumped and the 39-year-old Ginobili ($14 million) may retire too, making way for a cool sub $30 million potential offer for Paul.
Theoretically, a trio of LaMarcus Aldridge/Chris Paul pick-and-roll/pop game with Kawhi Leonard on the wing is the stuff of nightmares for opposing teams, and it doesn’t get better for them on defense. CP3 of course, has a history with the Spurs, eliminating them in Game 7 in 2015 with a last second shot that propelled them to the Second Round, where they were eliminated. Paul also played with Spurs’ Head Coach and all around badass, Gregg Popovich in his two stints with the American Olympic Team when they won gold.
None of this, however, means anything if Paul does as is expected of him and signs his max contract with the Clippers, choosing the easy money over the hard rings. But it does allow us to speculate over whether CP3 gets to choose between a nickname that is conferred and one that is earned.
Because earning demands sacrifice.
