Star Wars Day: NBA stars and their Star Wars counterparts

NBA stars and their Star Wars counterparts: Chris Paul = C3PO

Chris Paul is a future Hall of Fame point guard who is still playing at an All-NBA level even as he turns 36 years old. He has been on nine All-NBA teams, and this season should make it a tenth. Eighth times he has finished in the top-7 for MVP voting. He is fifth in career assists and career steals. Yet what is the first thing that comes to mind when many NBA fans think of Chris Paul? It’s that he is annoying.

He hunts for fouls, often egregiously so. He fouls opponents in underhanded ways trying to get away with it; he often does. He is constantly lobbying referees to call the game the way he thinks it should be called, for his team’s benefit. He rides his teammates relentlessly, correcting them if he finds their opinions or play fall short of his expectations for them.

Paul’s career lines up perfectly with the golden translator that is C-3PO, a protocol droid to manage “human-cyborg relations.” Throughout the entire Star Wars saga, C-3PO is in every film providing unimportant trivia and irritatingly correcting the main characters. Despite the fact that he actually is extremely intelligent, his input is ignored, perhaps because he provides it way too often.

Annoying. Highly intelligent with perfect recall. Makes sure everyone knows he is highly intelligent with perfect recall. Chris Paul and C-3PO are parallels in their respective universes, and that is before we consider that Chris Paul’s nickname of CP3 is eerily similar to that of the droid. Perhaps even Paul recognizes the parallels?