One of the prevalent storylines in these 2021 NBA Finals has been Chris Paul’s appearance in his first-ever NBA Finals in his 16-year career. While there’s no doubt that Paul has earned his chance at an NBA title, I find it interesting what Paul’s path to this Phoenix Suns team says about how the power balance in the league has shifted from the owners into the players themselves. I believe Chris Paul has experienced this shift throughout his career, and one of the reasons he is able to compete for a championship at 36 is because of the power he’s gained over the years.
I don’t think there’s any question that as a star player in the NBA, you have some leverage on choosing a destination in free agency, but it wasn’t always the case for some players as it seems to be for many nowadays. As it relates to Paul, showing that Paul perhaps didn’t have as much control in his next destination begins at the end of his time with the New Orleans Hornets. After six seasons with the New Orleans Hornets, Paul requested a trade to the Los Angeles Lakers to potentially play with Hall Of Famer Kobe Bryant. It initially seemed like Paul had control of his free agency destination and was destined to play for the purple and gold, but the deal infamously fell through during the league lockout. The details of the blocked trade between the Hornets and Lakers were recently revealed by Lakers vice president of business operations and current majority owner of the Lakers Jeanie Buss on Showtime’s “All The Smoke ” show by Matt Barnes. Jeanie revealed to viewers what the owners of the two teams failed to accomplish during a complicated time in the NBA exiting its lockout by stating,
“So if you remember we were in a lockout, right? When there’s a lockout, there’s a moratorium on everything: you can’t make trades, you can’t do anything. As we were making a deal with the union and then starting to lift the lockout rules, all the representatives of the teams had to be in New York for the Board of Governors meeting to ratify the new CBA. And so as we’re in this room, all of a sudden, there’s kind of this rumor that goes in around the room about a trade. Well, at that time, the team was run by the league, right? So there’s no way a trade can be happening if we’re all in this room doing league business. Except the [New Orleans] general manager of the team felt that he had the authority to make a trade. … So the trade was happening while everybody is in this room, so teams felt like, ‘How is that possible? We didn’t get a chance to make a trade for Chris Paul?’ And so they all attacked the league and said this wasn’t fair.”
Despite believing that Paul’s next destination was his own decision, it proved to be controlled by the NBA owners as a collective, and as the Hornets governor rather than as NBA Commissioner, David Stern was able to block the trade from happening for Paul. He was able to do so because the Hornets were owned by the league at the time, and the reason he blocked the trade was a sort of appeasement for the other league owners for the turmoil caused in the trade. Although this was a once-in-a-lifetime situation, it happened to fall upon this great player in Chris Paul, and his future was curtailed thanks to a collective effort against the trade. Many Lakers fans, even after winning it all in 2020, are still mad at the fact Paul wasn’t able to play with the great Kobe Bryant in arguably the prime of Paul’s career.
As we know, Chris Paul eventually made it to LA the following season, although to play for the Los Angeles Clippers and turn that team into the appropriately named “Lob City.” After his six-year stint in Los Angeles and many playoff failures and disappointments, it was once again time for Paul to move on to a different team. The Los Angeles Clippers didn’t feel like they wanted to continue to pay top dollar to retain CP3, so they decided to trade Paul to acquire assets rather than lose him in free agency for nothing. So, in the summer of 2017, Chris Paul was traded to the Houston Rockets for Sam Dekker, Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, DeAndre Liggins, Darrun Hilliard, Montrez Harrell, Kyle Wiltjer, a top-three protected 2018 first-round pick, and $661,000. Paul would team up with All-Star James Harden during his time as a Houston Rocket and was even able to reach the Western Conference Finals in his time there being one game away from the Finals. Paul was still at the mercy of the Clippers organization looking to capitalize on their star point guard, but there’s a sense that Paul perhaps had more control over his destination this time around than being traded to the Clippers, as he was sent to a contending team with a real chance at a championship.
After his short stint in Houston, Chris Paul was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Russel Westbrook and some future draft picks. At this point in his career being 34, with less control over his destination than the previous trade, in my opinion, many wrote off Paul as finished with his career after being shipped to a clearly rebuilding franchise. Surprisingly, however, Paul proved his doubters wrong and turned OKC into a winning situation and led them to a surprisingly high five seed in the Western Conference Playoff bracket. Although they lost to the Rockets in seven games in the first round in 2020, I believe that through Chris Paul’s play and mentality to refuse tanking in OKC, proved his value to the rest of the league that he was still an elite point guard. Paul played so well in OKC. He once again became an All-Star. Leading into the 2021 season, Paul ended up where he is now in Phoenix with the Suns. Although he’s never had the luxury to choose a free agency destination, this time around it felt like Paul had more of a say where he wanted to play. He earned the right to pick where OKC might trade him after proving his value to the league, and OKC could acquire more picks by shipping Paul to a team better prepared for a title run. Now, in his first year with the Phoenix Suns, Paul has found himself competing for an NBA championship which has been so coveted for him throughout his legendary career.
Throughout the lengthy career of Chris Paul, he’s been the key leader for many teams, but seldom on his own accords. He’s kept a calm head about his journey through the NBA, and has seen the power shift from owners and general managers to the players. Where once he was denied by a collective group, he now finds himself thriving on a championship-caliber team that only he could’ve brought together via his stellar play and leadership in OKC. This is as close as Chris Paul may get to choosing a free agency destination like the LeBrons and Durants of previous years. He is instrumental in his own success, as Paul has been a part of and President of the NBPA ( National Basketball Players Association), which has given more power and say to the players of the NBA than ever before. It certainly hasn’t been a traditional path for Paul around the association, but I feel it’s safe to say that he ultimately was able to bring forth the influence that a player of his caliber should have in order to cultivate success in the NBA. Who knows where Chris Paul may end up next, but rest assured the ball is in his court now.
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