Stop The Hot Takes: Chris Paul Is Not A Choker

After the Los Angeles Clippers’ underwhelming Game 7 loss in the first round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs, it’s time to remind people why Chris Paul is not a choker.

Chris Paul has never made a conference finals.

I know it, he knows it, everybody knows it.

It’s a tired narrative, and one that forces NBA observers into begrudging fandom of the Los Angeles Clippers once a year, if only because him reaching a conference finals would finally shut this idiotic misconception down.

Think about it: People low-key root for a group largely made up of insufferable whiners and underachievers just so Chris Paul can make a damn conference finals, or at the very least, stop coughing up series leads.

In Game 7 of the Clippers’ first round series in the 2017 NBA Playoffs, it wasn’t meant to be once again for CP3, who admittedly didn’t help his reputation as a “choker” with his 13 points on 6-of-19 shooting.

But before we jump into the same blazing takes that this somehow makes him anything but a first ballot Hall of Famer, let’s simmer down and take a look at the facts.

Yes, he’s never made a conference finals. Yes, he’s played in 76 career playoff games, which is the most in NBA history without a conference finals appearance. And yes, it’s unreasonable to expect the Internet to hold back its Chris Paul slander when this alleged legend keeps coming up short in the playoffs:

https://twitter.com/MattSuydam/status/858804996288253952

But it’s worth mentioning that even in a series where Rudy Gobert was sidelined for a few games, the Clippers were missing their second-best player in Blake Griffin for the last four and a half games of the series. That matters when facing a very good Utah Jazz team that won as many games as Lob City this year.

And yet, with Griffin sidelined, CP3 kept the Clippers afloat as he always seems to do with his superstar teammate injured — this, despite J.J. Redick being an absolute no-show for the series and Austin Rivers missing the first four games.

Even with his Game 7 dud, Paul averaged 25.3 points, 9.9 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game on .496/.368/.879 shooting splits. The guy simply ran out of steam after averaging 37.1 minutes per game and then tacking on another 40 in Game 7. What more could you ask for from your star player?

For his career, CP3 has raised his production from elite to even better in the postseason:

• Regular Season:  18.7 PPG, 9.9 APG, 4.4 RPG, 2.3 SPG, .473/.370/.866 shooting, 25.7 PER
• Playoffs:  21.5 PPG, 9.5 APG, 4.7 RPG, 2.2 SPG, .487/.387/.849 shooting, 26.1 PER

By all rights, he’s a top-five point guard all-time, and if weren’t for the stupid conference finals stigma attached to him, that would be a consensus opinion.

But throughout a career of postseason failures, which playoff series that Chris Paul lost was he supposed to win, exactly?

His Charlotte Hornets were the higher seed in 2008, but they were an inexperienced, young team going against the veteran San Antonio Spurs. CP3 played all 48 minutes in that Game 7 loss, performing admirably in his first trip to the postseason.

Paul didn’t have a great first round series in 2009, but his 7-seeded Hornets were clearly outmatched against the superior Denver Nuggets, the No. 2 seed.

In 2010, his team missed the playoffs when he went down with an injury. In 2011, his insane 22-12-7-2 stat line carried the 7-seeded Hornets in a six-game series against the 2-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, but once again he was outmatched without enough help around him.

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His tenure with the Clippers is not as easy to dismiss, but distinctions need to be made. In 2012, Lob City — the 5-seed — was predictably swept in the second round by the top-seeded Spurs. CP3 struggled in the series, but it was only his first season with Blake Griffin and it came against a vastly superior team.

In 2013, the Clippers lost in the first round as the higher seed, but that series featured a number of head-scratching lineup calls from head coach Vinny Del Negro, who was fired after the season ended.

2014 still stings for Clippers fans, but even if CP3 owned up to his team’s unforgettable Game 5 collapse, a few questionable calls — the botched out of bounds call that should’ve given the Clippers the ball back with 11.8 seconds left, not to mention Paul’s foul on a Russell Westbrook three-point attempt — were the turning points.

That Game 5 loss cost Lob City its chance at a 3-2 lead over the higher-seeded Thunder and they never recovered, but people also forget that the whole Donald Sterling controversy was a huge distraction at the time.

In 2015, the Clippers undoubtedly choked against the Houston Rockets, who won as many games as Lob City but earned home-court advantage via the tiebreaker. No one will ever forget that haunting Game 6 meltdown that saw a 19-point lead shrivel to a 12-point defeat, right when the Clippers were on the cusp of their first conference finals.

But people do forget that CP3 missed the first two games of the series, and despite being banged up for the next five games, still managed to post 33 points, 11 assists and seven boards in the Game 6 collapse — plus a 26-10-5-4 line in the Game 7 defeat on the road.

In 2016, injury struck again with both Griffin AND CP3 being sidelined in the Clippers’ first round defeat against the Portland Trail Blazers. In 2017, Paul lost his star sidekick once again in the first round.

You could make a case that CP3 “choked” in Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Playoffs and in Game 6 in 2015, but doing so would be taking a one or two-game sample size and overlooking the overwhelming body of evidence that testifies to Chris Paul’s greatness as a playoff performer:

People remember the 3-1 series collapse in 2015, or the late-game turnovers in 2014, but how is it they forget the more important numbers, all the injured or lackluster teammates and the Game 7 game-winner against the mighty Spurs?

Heading into free agency this summer, CP3 has options. How much is it worth to keep toiling away on these underachieving Clippers squads that can never make it through one playoff run fully healthy? It’s a tough question to answer, though the $200 million CP3 would make by re-signing seems like a fair starting point.

Maybe he’ll head back to New Orleans and form a Big Three with Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, but that’s not a sure championship contender by any means. Why join a Pelicans squad lacking depth when he’s already got a Big Three with no depth in L.A.?

Maybe he’ll pull the ultimate power move and join Gregg Popovich and the Spurs, forever silencing those who question his competitive fire.

No matter where he and the rest of the Clippers end up this summer, however, it shouldn’t take a conference finals appearance to make or break our perception of Chris Paul. While it’s an embarrassing blemish on his Hall of Fame resume that grows worse with each passing year, it also overlooks the fact that basketball is a team game requiring quality teammates and some luck.

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Chris Paul hasn’t had the right mix of either element in his postseason runs. Here’s hoping he does turn down that massive payday and joins the damn Spurs to make everyone pay, because if all it takes is one lousy conference finals appearance to validate his legacy, maybe when that day arrives we can finally admit we’ve been looking at his career wrong this whole time.