Chris Paul lets us in on how he’s still balling for the Suns, and why you just don’t know him if you are surprised
Sam Amick Apr 23, 2021
Everyone in the room knew Chris Paul didn’t want to be there. Not initially, anyway.
The fallen Point God showed no disrespect on that summer day in 2019, when the Oklahoma City Thunder staff presented its load management plan to him and his people inside the Creative Artists Agency offices in downtown Los Angeles. But Paul was still stinging from the Houston trade that he believed never should have happened, not after former Rockets executive Daryl Morey had, as Paul put it, told him “he wouldn’t trade me to Oklahoma City.” The Thunder, meanwhile, wanted to discuss his possible revival and the mutually beneficial ways they might inspire it.
From general manager Sam Presti on down, they had spent a significant amount of time studying Paul’s mid-30s decline and searching for answers to the health problems that had plagued him. He had been losing the fight against Father Time of late, missing more than 20 games in each of the previous three seasons before getting traded in a deal that spoke volumes about his diminished value.
The Rockets, after all, gave up two first-rounders and two pick swaps in addition to Paul to land Russell Westbrook and his near-identical contract. And while Morey believed Paul would be moved to Miami in the immediate aftermath of the trade, sources say the purported Heat interest was nonexistent.
So here they were.
If Paul was going to reverse this aging process, and to eventually have his wish of getting traded to a contending team that was as close to his family in LA as possible, they would have to defy basketball history together. There were seemingly endless data points in the Thunder’s presentation, from the deep analysis of his minutes and the overarching question of how best to manage them to the historical context that they hoped would persuade him to play along.
“Pretty comprehensive shit,” one Thunder source who was in attendance said in describing the presentation and its purpose. “How do we use this as a launching point for the next phase of your career? It was everyone working together to come up with an efficient plan.”
Yet as Paul made quite clear in that crowded room where five Thunder representatives, his brother, C.J., and Paul’s two agents at the time waited for his reaction to it all, putting him on the AARP program wasn’t the way to do it.
“They showed me a PowerPoint presentation of what other players had been like at the age of 34 and 35,” Paul said, laughing as he re-told the story to The Athletic by phone recently. “I was just sitting there watching. They’re showing me what Steve Nash was like, J-Kidd, Chauncey Billups and what all these people looked like, and their numbers and all that stuff. And I sat there. They told me, ‘We only look at you playing maybe 60 games, this and that, you know?’ You remember that, Ma? My Mama’s laughing.”
As Paul tells this story of his renaissance from Phoenix, where his surprising Suns (42-17) are somehow pushing for the best record in the league and the man who turns 36 next month is back to his MVP-caliber ways again, he’s going down memory lane with this reporter while taking his visiting mother, Robin, along for the ride. And what a journey it has been.
All these years in, from the Winston-Salem, N.C. upbringing to the Wake Forest days and 16 Hall of Fame-worthy seasons in the NBA, and here he was trying to figure out how to make the most of this unfamiliar situation.
Paul had mastered the art of career control in recent years, choosing to leave New Orleans for the Clippers, then the Clippers for Houston, before this Thunder experience was forced upon him. So yeah, this was definitely different.
“Control what you can control,” he often says.
This time around, though, there was so much being determined by everyone else.
It didn’t matter that he was the longtime president of the National Basketball Players Association, or that he had a Hall of Fame résumé long before this deal went down. The Thunder’s top priority at the time had been granting Westbrook his wish to head for Houston, and Morey was trying to solve a situation that had become increasingly untenable between Paul and Harden.
Yet if Paul was determined to control anything in Oklahoma City, it was his playing time. So long as his new approach to health held up.
Paul admits there were things the Thunder didn’t truly understand yet back then, changes that he had already made to his body and his routine that were already making a world of difference. The plant-based diet that has played a major part in his newfound durability. The changing of personal trainers. A heightened focus on sleep patterns that people close to him point to as an important development. Modern-day things of that nature.
He would go on to rave about the Thunder organization on his way out of town 16 months later, praising Presti and company for the communication and collaboration that helped him revive his career. But in the beginning, when they came his way with a menu of “three or four” different plans for how to take the pragmatic approach to his playing time, he wasn’t hearing it.
Paul and his mother have a laugh about it now.
“Oh, it’s real funny,” said Paul, who had never lived separate from his wife, Jada, and their two young kids to that point of his career. “(The Thunder) were saying, ‘(If) we play here, and you can go home, see your family.’ They’re using that angle because they know how I am with my family. And at the end of the PowerPoint presentation, I said, ‘You know, I appreciate y’all coming out here, but one thing I just realized is y’all don’t know me. I don’t do premeditated rest and all this.’ And I said, ‘I appreciate you guys trying to let me see my family, but I’ll manage seeing my family.’ I said, ‘I hoop. I’ve got a job to do. I play basketball.’ They were looking out for me (because) they probably felt I was injury prone coming from Houston, you know? They were like, ‘You’ve played 56 games the past couple years,’ you know? I had already told them about the changes and all the stuff I made. But I get it. They hadn’t seen it.”
Everyone sees it now.
History in the making
All it takes is a glance at the standings to appreciate Paul’s remarkable play right now. The Suns, who landed Paul (and Abdel Nader) in mid-November in exchange for Kelly Oubre Jr., Ricky Rubio, Ty Jerome, Jalen Lecque and a 2022 first-rounder, are up there with heavyweight squads like Utah, the Clippers, and Philadelphia and look very much like a legitimate title contender despite not having been in the playoffs since 2010.
Paul has fit in wonderfully alongside two-time All-Star Devin Booker and a cast of complementing characters, averaging 16 points, 8.8 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.4 steals while playing in all but one of the Suns’ 59 games so far. In terms of health and availability, this latest surprise season is quite similar to the defiant and dynamic season he wound up having in Oklahoma City.
Despite that plan that one Thunder official joked was “a waste of a PowerPoint presentation,” Paul wound up playing in 70 of 72 regular season games and even came within seconds of knocking out the Morey-Westbrook-James Harden Rockets in their seven-game, first round playoff series.
All in all, it has been an impressive two-year run that will forever re-shape the way Paul is remembered. Especially considering the mark he’s making on the history books these days.
Paul passed Magic Johnson for fifth all-time in assists on Monday, and has plenty of time left to catch Mark Jackson, Steve Nash and perhaps even Jason Kidd at No. 2 (John Stockton is virtually untouchable). He’s fifth all-time in steals, with Gary Payton, Michael Jordan and Kidd all within reach (Stockton, again, is simply too far ahead).
But once you factor in Paul’s age you start to realize the truly special nature of it all. According to StatHead.com, Paul and his good friend, the Lakers’ LeBron James, are the only 35-plus-year-olds in league history who have averaged at least 15 points, eight assists, four rebounds and one steal per game (James did it in 2019-20). Limit the search to the 15-point/eight-assist thresholds, and Steve Nash (2009-10 Suns) and Lenny Wilkens (1972-73 Cavs) join the fountain-of-youth foursome.
This isn’t unprecedented stuff, but it’s close.
“Chris is a different breed,” said Jerry West, the Hall of Famer, Lakers legend and Clippers consultant who is one of nine players ever who averaged at least 15 points and eight assists after their 34th birthday. “Only people who appreciate basketball appreciate him. He’s got every element you want as a player. He just competes and plays every night. And he’s not a one-way player, either, by the way. He’s a bitch (to play against). I love him as a player. I always have. He’s smart. He’s clever. He can make shots. He can defend like crazy. Again, he does everything that you would want in a leader.
“He’s just a remarkable player. He’s just a tremendous, tremendous player. The ultimate competitor. He’s been like this his whole career.”
Truth be told, the fact that Paul is still employed as an NBA player is an accomplishment worth celebrating considering the historical context. To wit: Paul is the only member of the 2005 first-round draft class who is still playing, with Hawks guard Lou Williams (who was taken 45th overall) the only remaining member from the second round.
The other 58? It’s a collection of podcasters (No. 1 pick Andrew Bogut), MMA enthusiasts (Paul’s longtime counterpart, Deron Williams), media members(Channing Frye), and would-be boxers (Nate Robinson) whose NBA days are behind them.
For Paul to be not only playing, but also playing this well is nothing short of incredible.
“There’s a lot of guys who I came in the league with who don’t play in the league anymore, so I don’t know; I know how blessed I am,” Paul said. “I think about that a lot. And that’s why I always say, like I’m — I don’t know. I just do the work, you know what I mean? I just do the work. If it’s getting up, lifting daily, treatment, tissue work, eating right, working out. That’s the fun part of it to me. The routine, the process. I fell in love with it years ago.”
From this vantage point, the renewed appreciation for Paul was born out of a moment that had stuck with me for quite some time. On the night of May 10, 2019, mere minutes after Golden State eliminated Houston from the Western Conference semifinals in Game 6 despite not having Kevin Durant, I remember talking with the Warriors’ Draymond Green about Paul and the uncertain path that seemed to lie ahead.
Paul was one year removed from signing his four-year, $160 million deal with Houston, the one that Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta reportedly saw as “the worst that he’d ever seen in business or sports,” according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. There was, it seemed, all sorts of reasons for skepticism about what might be next for Paul.
If the Rockets couldn’t beat the Warriors without Durant, and if Paul kept slowing down like it seemed he was at the time while playing on this contract that so many saw as untradeable, then it was fair to wonder if his basketball end was fast approaching — at least when it came to the idea that he could remain an elite player on a contending team. And this was before we knew about all the friction between Paul and Harden that had everything to do with him being on the market to begin with.
Competitively speaking, it seemed like he was stuck. Filthy rich, of course, but still likely facing a challenging basketball road ahead.
Fast forward to modern times, and Paul finds himself playing a pivotal role in the same sort of competitive situation yet again while enjoying all the personal touches that came with this move to Phoenix. What’s more, the once-unthinkable notion of Paul declining his player option worth $44.2 million for next season to secure another long-term deal seems, in fact, quite thinkable. For Paul’s part, he swears there’s no clarity on his future just yet because, well, the present deserves all of his attention.
“I mean first and foremost, I love it here,” Paul said when asked about the option and whether Phoenix might be his final NBA stop. “I don’t know how many years I’ve got left. I don’t really think about that either. I feel too good.”
“Seriously, this summer, I have no clue. As much as I’m involved in the union and stuff like that, I don’t know what anybody’s teams are, (what their) caps are, I don’t know none of that stuff. I just play. And like I say, I’m lucky to have my brother, my brother who helps. I focus on playing.”
You know what else he’s not focusing on? The MVP race.
When I raise this hot topic somewhat sheepishly, knowing full well that I’d have to mention writing a story recently in which nine candidates who didn’t bear his name were highlighted, there was no indignation to be found. Suns legend and TNT analyst Charles Barkley may be upset about Paul not receiving more consideration from the media, but Paul himself – who immediately raved about Booker when this question was posed – is clearly not.
“Nah man, like I said, we control what we can control, you know what I mean?” he said.
To hear Paul reflect on this Phoenix experience, though, it’s clear that the prospect of him remaining in the Valley for years to come is entirely possible. His personal comfort, the kind that clearly wasn’t there at the end of the Rockets experience, is an X-factor of sorts in this surprising Suns season.
Not only is he just a 90-minute flight away from Los Angeles and able to sneak back to the family far more frequently, but he’s partnering with a group of people with whom he has deep roots. Suns coach Monty Williams was with Paul in New Orleans during the season-plus that preceded his trade to the Clippers in December 2011.
“I think Monty and the staff that was here, they had already set what the culture was going to be,” Paul said of Williams, who is in his second season with the Suns. “And I came in, and that was a huge thing. When the trade happened, I had a long call with Monty. Monty was at my wedding. There’s an unbelievable trust there that goes deeper than just a coach.”
James Jones, who said the deal for Paul came together “really fast,” was Paul’s teammate on the NBPA executive committee before he retired in 2017.
“James was amazing (in getting him to Phoenix),” Paul said. “And (Suns vice president of basketball operations) Jeff Bower was my general manager in New Orleans.”
Suns assistant coach Willie Green, who Paul said “was huge” when it came to his comfort level with the deal, spent one season alongside Paul and Williams in New Orleans (2010-11) during his playing days.
“That’s my family,” Paul said of Green.
Booker, who is 11 years younger than Paul, is a fellow CAA client who he’d grown closer to long before they became backcourt mates.
“You know what’s so cool about our relationship, man, and it sort of goes back to me in New Orleans with David West, right?” Paul said of Booker. “We both lead in different ways, you know? …The thing about me and ‘Book’ is there’s genuine love and respect. Our relationship goes deeper than basketball.
“I see myself in him a lot — not shooting the ball, and not basketball-wise. But I’m talking about (having) a chip on your shoulder, play with an edge. I still play with a crazy edge, but it’s dope because I know the energy that ‘Book’ is on night in and night out. He’s not ducking nobody.”
Thunder Struck
In those early days of Paul’s time with the Thunder, the relationships that would later make him feel so at ease in Phoenix simply didn’t exist in Oklahoma City. As personalities go, Paul’s is as discerning as they come. And considering the way things had ended in Houston, it should surprise no one that he was unsure about how this next challenge would go.
Presti and Paul only knew each other in passing, having spent some limited time together on the league’s competition committee. Paul talks to Thunder point guard Shai-Gilgeous Alexander daily even now, but those kinds of player ties had not yet been established back then.
The most meaningful connection, it would seem, was the one he had with the Oklahoma City fans after spending so much of his first two seasons in the league there when Hurricane Katrina displaced the New Orleans Hornets.
“We didn’t know each other,” Paul said.
But when the news of the trade had come his way, with Morey calling Paul just as a media notification about the deal popped up on his phone, Paul decided almost immediately to focus on the work and let the personal dynamics with the Thunder unfold over time. His game, and the elusive health required to play it the way he had come to expect, would be the thing that put him in the driver’s seat again.
“I was at the Peach Jam (Nike tournament) in Augusta, Ga. with my AAU team, and I had (Cavs guard) Collin Sexton down there working out with me,” Paul said.
Paul, yet again, throws the ball to his mother.
“Mom, we were at the Tavern, wasn’t we? We were at Sage Valley?’” he asked. “I was sitting there at this place called Sage Valley with my parents and my brother and everybody, and I got a phone call that I was traded, you know? Unexpectedly. Didn’t know. Like I said, Daryl Morey had just told me a couple weeks before that that he wouldn’t trade me, that he wouldn’t trade me there.
“I think a lot of guys in this league, you play for a while and you feel like the team at least owes you a conversation, you know what I mean? Like, of course they can do whatever they want to. You’re under contract, but just to have a conversation with you is respectful enough, I feel. So when that didn’t happen in Houston, it was what it was. …The only thing I was upset about at the time of that trade was the fact that I knew my family wasn’t going to move with me, right? But basketball-wise, I was in a whole different place mentally, physically and everything already, you know? So me and Collin worked out that next morning, at like 6 a.m. The trade happened that night, and me and Collin were in the gym at 6 a.m. the next morning. And I was cool, I was at peace, because I knew what was to come as far as basketball.”
The confidence, quite clearly, was born largely out of the changes Paul had made even before the deal went down.
“Those two years in Houston were amazing, but obviously those injuries affected me mentally a lot,” he said. “For me, I’ve always lifted. I’ve always prepared a certain way. But after I got injured that second year in Houston, I made some changes. And then after that season, I made some changes … it sucks when your body won’t let you do what your mind wants it to do.”
Paul, who gets coy on this topic when pressed for more insight, is reluctant to detail the many ways in which he’s reshaped his routine and his body. Anyone who watches the Suns telecasts knows there’s an element of mystery here, as the camera often features Paul’s in-game drink, which has a hand-written label that reads, “Chris’ Secret Stuff.”
“I’m just saying I made a few changes,” he said with a laugh. “I made a few changes.”
He has pulled this curtain back a bit before, though. There was a January 2020 interview with Men’s Health in which he spoke at length about his decision to commit to a plant-based diet and all the benefits that came with that choice. There’s his recent partnership with GoPuff, an online food delivery company that empowered Paul to build out its plant-based menu while highlighting Black and Brown owned companies. And in the days that followed the Thunder trade, there was Paul deciding to make it clear to his new teammates that — backstory be damned — he was all-in now.
“What Sam Presti and (Thunder coach) Billy Donovan did, and OKC from Day One did, was they communicated with me, and I communicated with them, you know?” Paul explained. “And my teammates (too). The first day I was there, the first time we had a meeting, I sat there and told everybody, ‘I want to be here. I’m not here trying to get moved, or what-not, you know? I’m a big believer in not letting the media talk for you or speak for you, you know what I mean? And so, yeah, you control what you can control.”
Even if this wasn’t the storyline he had in mind, it was time to make the best of it. And did he ever.
Despite that initial discussion with the Thunder about taking the pragmatic approach to playing time, Paul wound up leading the Thunder to a surprise playoff berth while playing in 70 of 72 regular season games and logging nearly identical minutes to his previous three campaigns in the process (31.5 per game). And as he is quick to point out, there were very good reasons for the two games he missed — especially the first one.
After a Thunder road game at Minnesota on Jan. 25, 2020, he had taken advantage of the forthcoming off-day to fly back to Los Angeles and surprise his daughter, Camryn, at her dance recital. The plan, originally, was for him to be back in time for a home game against Dallas on Jan. 27. Then tragedy struck.
Kobe Bryant, the Lakers legend and one of Paul’s closest friends, had died along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others in the Calabasas, Calif., helicopter crash that took place while the dance recital was ongoing nearby.
“While we’re at my daughter’s dance recital, I’m five minutes away from where Kobe’s helicopter went down,” Paul said. “So one of those games I missed because I didn’t want to fly. I was still in LA with my family. And the only other game I missed was the last game of the bubble, because I think I hurt my thumb or something like that.”
Right around that time, the Suns were starting to look like a team that was much closer to contention than most believed before their exciting bubble run. They won all eight of their games in Orlando, with Booker averaging 30.5 points, six assists and 4.9 rebounds, big man Deandre Ayton showing signs of serious progress (15 points, 9.5 rebounds per) and fellow prospects like Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson coming into their own. Phoenix fell just short of the postseason, and Jones — who had been elevated to the GM role in April 2019 and hired Williams a month later — was content with the progress and planning on keeping the roster intact.
“I had no desire to break up our team,” Jones said. “I love continuity. I wanted to keep our team together.”
But Paul, meanwhile, was making quite a case that he’d be a worthy addition while ending his lone Thunder campaign in near-storybook fashion. Oklahoma City pushed the Westbrook-James Harden Rockets to seven games in the first round, only to fall by two points in the finale.
Paul, who was well aware at the time that he had likely played his last game with Oklahoma City, had a triple double (19 points, 12 assists, 11 rebounds and two steals) while playing nearly 40 minutes of the frenetic Game 7. When it was all over, he sent out a social media video thanking the Thunder and their fans for their experience and speaking like a man who was unofficially saying goodbye. Beyond the obvious message of gratitude, sources say the Thunder believed he was making this much clear too: It was time to figure out where his next stop would be.
Phoenix Rising
As Jones remembers it, the deal came together quickly. Never mind that nearly three months had passed since Paul had shared his digital send-off. Sources say Paul was a driving force behind the deal, and the Thunder — who had prioritized Westbrook’s desire to get to Houston above all else when Paul first came their way — were willing to send him to a destination of his choosing even if it meant they got a little less back in return. His professionalism, his play and the mentorship that would help the Thunder’s young players as they moved forward had earned him that much.
Ironically, sources say Philadelphia — with Morey having taken over the Sixers’ front office just weeks before Paul was sent to the Suns, and his former Clippers coach, Doc Rivers, part of their program too — made a spirited push to land Paul. The Sixers even believed there was some traction on a possible deal. The interest from Paul, however, was not mutual. With Paul targeting Phoenix as the best fit professionally and personally, and Presti in a much-improved negotiating position because of the way Paul had played, the Suns had won the CP sweepstakes.
“The way I built the team was that if you give me a playmaker or a distributor with young guys who are selfless players, put them next to Devin Booker…” Jones said before pausing. “Ricky Rubio (who was sent to Oklahoma City in the deal) was tremendous for us. But if you put Chris Paul in that position, can we be better? And can he help our other guys be better? It’s a track record, an expectation that he would be able to do that, but knowing that our team was constructed for, and built, so a guy like Chris could have success. So it’s all about the need and the team. …What we needed was another playmaker. We needed Chris.”
More specifically, the Suns needed a healthy Chris. Jones, who had seen Paul’s ability to problem solve up close during their time together with the NBPA, was confident that the combination of Paul’s personal plan and his unflinching competitiveness would allow him to remain elite.
“He’s always been able to adapt,” Jones said. “Any challenge in his career, in his life, when he saw a challenge he finds a way to figure it out. So if it’s changing your diet, if it’s changing your routine, if it’s increasing your sleep or changing your sleep cycle, if it’s changing your lifestyle habits, that’s an opportunity to adapt and Chris willingly does that. He’s not one to sit back and say, ‘Alright, well I’ve been doing it this way my entire career and I’ve had X-amount of success, so I’m going to do what I’ve (always) done.”
Of all the ways to analyze Paul’s turnaround, there’s no better measure than his value on the trade market. In this NBA day and age where exorbitant salaries for stars have made first rounders more coveted than ever because of the cost control that comes with them, Paul went from costing his team two first-rounders on his way out of Houston to netting his team a first-rounder on the way out of Oklahoma City a year later. This three-first-rounder swing was, above all else, indisputable proof that he had revived his career.
“I told him last year, to me you should be more proud of what you did with OKC than anything,” said Jamal Crawford, his 41-year-old former Clippers teammate and friend who is an authority playing well at an advanced age because, well, he once scored 50 points at the age of 39 (for the Suns, no less). “People didn’t even know if (the Thunder) were going to keep him at the beginning of the season, right? So from that to what he did, and then with Phoenix it wasn’t a surprise at all. I told some of the Phoenix people I know, and who I still talk to, ‘Oh ok, well you guys are going to the playoffs now.’ I just know Chris, and I know how he’s wired. …Did I know they’d be second or third in the West? No, I didn’t know that.
“But think about (what he did)? Chris is already a household name. He’s a brand name. He’s a world-class superstar, and this guy is still climbing another mountain. …That’s how it’s always been. Look at his track record. This guy is a winner. He’s a winner of the highest degree.”
When it comes to the discussion about NBA greatness, there is no consensus on how best to judge players like Paul. His lack of a championship (or Finals appearance) will always be a focal point of the debate that surrounds him, even if the totality of his playoff resume’ from a production standpoint is actually quite impressive.
The ringz culture, as it’s known on NBA Twitter, is a flawed and simplistic space that reigns supreme. So he gets dinged because the ‘Lob City’ Clippers never figured out how to reach their peak, and because the Rockets — like the Clippers — could never find a way to get past the mighty Warriors.
But all the work that went on before those moments matters a great deal too. And as StatMuse chronicled so perfectly, every team Paul has played for has been so much better for it.
All along the way, the winning history and list of accolades just keep piling up: 11 All-Star appearances, nine All-NBA selections (four first, four second, one third), nine All-Defensive Team selections (seven first-team), two Olympic gold medals, with the possibility of another one to come if he chooses to play for Team USA in Tokyo this summer.
“Yeah, I’m thinking about it,” Paul said of the Olympics. “I’m thinking about it. I don’t know yet. I told (Team USA director) Jerry (Colangelo) I would get with him soon. I’d seen him the other day out here in Phoenix.”
So no, in other words, he’s not done yet. And this latest chapter, one that Paul swears has not surprised him, should not be soon forgotten.
“Man, it’s been a journey, to tell you the truth,” Paul said. “Me and Willie Green was having a conversation, and he was like, ‘If you could do it all over again, would you have left the Clippers (for Houston in the summer of 2017)?’ I said, ‘You know what? I wouldn’t know what I know now had I not. I learned so much stuff about me. I learned so many things about my body, about all this different type stuff, so I don’t know.”
He knows this much, though: Somehow, someway, there’s still much more to come.
“Once I started feeling as well as I do, I remember…” said Paul, leaning on his mother one last time to recall a fond memory. “Mom, that was y’all I called?’ I called and was like, ‘Man, I feel so good I know I can play at least 20 years’ (Laughs). So I don’t know. I’ll talk to my kids about it too. But I love it too much, and I don’t know. I’m gonna just keep playing.
