Los Angeles Clippers: Squandering Chris Paul’s Prime

As Chris Paul gets older, the Clippers’ supporting cast around him and Blake Griffin hasn’t gotten much better after disappointing playoff exits in recent seasons. Since Paul joined the Clippers in 2011, many thought they would be perennial contenders but they’ve never made it out of the second round. Compared to other top teams in the West, the Clippers’ outlook seems bleak.

While many people insist that Chris Paul hasn’t been validated since he’s never even made it to the conference finals once in his 10-year career, the teams around him have had something in common.

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Going back to New Orleans, Paul led his teams with inferior talent to the playoffs and gave teams like the eventual champion Lakers a very tough fight. Without much talent on his teams besides David West and an aging Peja Stojokavic, whose health was deteriorating very quickly, Paul needed epic performances for his teams to stay competitive.

In the 2008-09 season, Chris Paul had one of the all-time great seasons in the history of the NBA when he averaged 22.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and 11.0 assists. Only two other players have ever put up those numbers. If you add the efficient three turnovers he averaged as a qualifier, he’s the only player to ever put up such numbers.

	Per Game
Rk	Player	Season ▾	Age	Tm	PTS	TRB	AST
1	Chris Paul	2008-09	23	NOH	22.8	5.5	11.0
2	Magic Johnson*	1986-87	27	LAL	23.9	6.3	12.2
3	Oscar Robertson*	1965-66	27	CIN	31.3	7.7	11.1
4	Oscar Robertson*	1964-65	26	CIN	30.4	9.0	11.5
5	Oscar Robertson*	1961-62	23	CIN	30.8	12.5	11.4

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/11/2015.

This theme seems to be continuing with the Clippers, as they struggle to keep up in the ever-improving, hypercompetitive Western Conference. There’s no shame in losing to great teams in a Conference where at least four teams have been legitimate contenders for the past few seasons, but the Clippers have been very disappointing in that span.

Teams like the Grizzlies, the Clippers’ archrivals in recent years, have had problems but they seem to have fixed them.

With the dark cloud of the Donald Sterling scandal looming over the Clippers last season, they beat a very good Warriors team in a series that went seven games. There’s potentially two ways to look at this series win for the Clippers. With all the drama and the immense distraction the scandal created, the Clippers still somehow found a way to beat the Warriors.

One the other hand, the Warriors were without their defensive anchor, Andrew Bogut and still forced the series to seven games. The Clippers were supposed to win. A loss in the first round would have been catastrophic, although the scandal would be a convenient scapegoat.

In the summer of 2013, the Clippers had a star in the making in Eric Bledsoe. With Paul running the show for the Clippers, keeping Bledsoe would be an embarrassment of riches. A trade was imminent and they ended up trading Bledsoe, Caron Butler and a second round pick for J.J. Redick, an underwhelming haul for such a precocious talent.

One baffling move Doc Rivers recently made was trading for his son, Austin Rivers, a marginal NBA player at this point who has little business cracking the rotation of a team with championship aspirations. What was even more disturbing was what the Clippers gave up – Reggie Bullock and Chris Douglas-Roberts, two solid bench players who could help the Clippers.

Doc Rivers’ five-year, $50 million extension has given him the authority to pull off such bold, reckless moves that may ultimately end up hurting the team.

As Chris Paul turns 30, there will be tremendous pressure to win as he only has a couple more seasons of elite basketball left. While J.J. Redick is an amazing shooter and allows the Clippers to space the floor so well, he doesn’t take any pressure off of Paul defensively. With so many great point guards in the West, Paul truly has no nights off on either end of the floor.

As Gregg Popovich wins his 1,000th game and cements his legacy, one thought comes to mind. Even though the Spurs’ title runs probably would have never happened without Tim Duncan, Popovich always put his team in a position to win.

He made countless shrewd moves such as signing Danny Green, trading for Kawhi Leonard, Patty Mills and many other moves in previous championship runs to take the pressure off Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. By the end of Paul’s career, if he doesn’t end up winning a championship, it was just a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time for an all-time great.

Next: Why the Grizzlies are Finally Legit

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