Chris Paul #3 of the Oklahoma City Thunder brings the ball up court during the first quarter of the game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on March 08, 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Omar Rawlings/Getty Images)
The magnitude of acquiring Chris Paul goes well beyond the Phoenix Suns adding a great basketball player.
Here is an idea of what goes into making one of the greatest point guards of all time and why the change he will bring to the organization is as advertised.
THE MIND
Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams speaks with Chris Paul during a NBA preseason basketball game. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
The nickname of “Point God” for Paul is a fun play on words for his position but it’s also used as a point of respect for the way he plays.
“Chris has an ability to make everything around him better. I witnessed it as a rookie head coach,” Suns head coach Monty Williams said.
Williams’ first season coaching the New Orleans Hornets in 2010 was with Paul as his best player, and boy was it nice for him to have an All-NBA point guard entering his prime. Upon Paul’s arrival in Phoenix, the coach spoke honestly about how much credit Paul deserved for a 48-win season and not himself.
“Then all of a sudden (the next year,) the plays I was drawing up didn’t work out as well,” Williams said half-joking.
The duo had plenty of talks over the next 10 years about what went right and wrong, giving them a proper perspective on the special connection they can now capitalize on after being reunited.
“When I see those two, I see joy,” Suns forward Jae Crowder said. “I see a lot of brain, a lot of knowledge between the two.”
Paul has an extremely high level of skill with the basketball. Too often he gets boxed in as a player whose greatness is defined by his instincts and smarts. He’s explosive getting around defenders, with one of the best handles the sport has seen in the last 20 years, and has an incredible feel for touch shots. He’s one of the league’s signature mid-range killers and an all-time defender at his position, to boot.
With that being said, it does truly come back a lot to what’s in that noggin.
“I think that’s the biggest upside to Chris: the way his brain operates, how much he studies the game, how much he’s watched all his opponents and teams he’s going to play against,” Suns assistant coach Willie Green said.
Green might be the best guy to talk to on the Suns about Paul, even more than Williams. He played with Paul under Williams in New Orleans for that one year, and then again got a year alongside him on the Los Angeles Clippers.
“It allows him to go into games and really dictate, ‘OK, where can we take advantage? Who needs the ball at this moment? How can I get downhill on a pick-and-roll here? Can I get a steal here?'” Green outlined. “His mind is operating like that all the time.”
Williams often roasts himself on how weird some of his players must think he is when he calls or texts them, oftentimes beyond midnight with something he thought of or saw on tape.
Paul’s cut from the same cloth. During preseason play, he called Williams to discuss what a certain team was doing on the floor, how the Suns match up and intricacies like that.
That was surely some prep for an upcoming opponent, yeah? Nope. Paul was just watching league pass like the basketball junkie he is, and as Green said, Paul’s brain is wired that way.
“(It’s) a breath of fresh air when you have someone that can take what you’re doing on the floor and do it and then see other things,” Williams said.
“He talks. He communicates. He’s going to tell you what he sees, what he doesn’t like, how we can get better here,” Green said. “As coaches, it makes you go back and reevaluate, ‘OK, how can we get better? Is this the right way?’ And I think he just challenges you in that way.”
“We’re going to learn so much from him that is going to make us better coaches,” Green added. “He’s just that smart and intelligent when it comes to the game.”
THE VOICE
Chris Paul asks a question during a Black Economic Summit at Camp North End in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 23, 2020. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Something else to understand about Paul is that he has one of the strongest voices for a player in the league. He’s been the president of the National Basketball Players Association since 2013.
“The reason why I got involved back (in) my third year was just to sort of understand the business of the game. I’ve had an opportunity to be in a number of the negotiations — I’ve learned a lot,” Paul said. “When you’re a kid, growing up playing in your backyard trying to be Michael Jordan, you’re not thinking of CBA negotiations. You’re just thinking about playing basketball. But as you get older, you realize that it’s a business. You take care of your family and everything like that.
“It’s been an unbelievable learning process for me and I continue to try and soak in everything I can.”
The night the league shut down on March 11 due to the spread of COVID-19, Paul was making calls to NBPA executive director Michelle Roberts while also leading a, understandably so, shaken up locker room. His Oklahoma City team had its game against the Utah Jazz called off when Utah center Rudy Gobert tested positive. The Thunder had to stay in the arena and were going through temperature checks and such before getting cleared to leave. Paul was making sure they were OK and that his team understood as much as he did, all while he had his mind on the bigger picture too.
“When you think about how good he is and has been it’s like, ‘Man, how do you juggle all that? And have time to do State Farm commercials with Jake whatever that guy’s name is?’ That’s a lot of stuff,” Williams said.
Paul takes on that responsibility to make sure players are properly represented. Whether it was a new collective bargaining agreement, labor negotiations or what have you, Paul has been at the center of many of those decisions for nearly a decade. And as he told ESPN’s Royce Young, he makes sure other players besides him are on those calls so other voices can give input.
“It’s a credit to Chris’ character,” Green said. “He is someone who invests time in people. He cares about you. You know that right away by talking to him.”
When last season was on pause in the middle of the pandemic, Paul was talking to commissioner Adam Silver at least once a week.
In the bubble, when players protested following the police shooting of Jacob Blake and at one point considered not finishing out the rest of the year, Paul was (you guessed it) heavily involved.
He was on the phone call with LeBron James talking to Barack Obama, asking for the former president’s advice and how they could bring as much change as possible if they did indeed come back to play.
Paul’s position gave him the ability to help accomplish a lot with his fellow players, such as over half the arenas in the league becoming voting centers for the November election since that protest, an effort pushed by James’ More Than A Vote organization.
“Chris is a guy that’s probably at the top of the list when you think about a guy who transcends the sport,” Williams said. “He kind of connects the floor to the business side. He connects the players association to the owners and the players. He’s a guy that’s a bit of a glue for all kinds of pillars in the league … I think the guys look up to him because of the high level that he does it with.
“He’s articulate, he’s thoughtful and the thing that I hope that all of the players see is how much he cares about them. Chris has made a lot of money but he’s done a lot to help other guys make a lot of money. That was something I didn’t understand when I came into the league. I just thought the players association was some secret society that just came up with a deal and we played. I didn’t really get it. The longer I’ve been around, I understand how much work goes into it and how much Chris has done over the league has been a plus for the league.”
Following a 26-point effort in a close win over the Houston Rockets during the first round of the playoffs, Paul was interviewed postgame on TNT with millions watching.
Instead of answering the first question about the game, he chose to utilize that platform to speak on Blake and the importance of voting.
Paul used his role to make that challenge a successful one. He announced in October that 90% of eligible NBA players were registered to vote, including a 100% rate on 15 teams in the league. That came after the 2016 election that saw only 20% of eligible NBA players registered.
Later that month, Paul led a march of 2,500 in North Carolina to an early voting site.
“Y’all see the power of having all of you together,” Paul said to nearly 600 students gathered around him at Winston-Salem State University, his hometown school. “Y’all can really make a difference.”
THE LEADER
Chris Paul talks with Jae Crowder on the bench during a NBA preseason game. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
For a casual audience from afar, Paul has a reputation as someone who gets vocal a lot. At the refs. At his teammates. If this season will be your first time watching Paul, get used to it, but know where it’s coming from.
“I think it’s probably bad when you don’t care enough to demand,” Williams said. “If you talk to Devin (Booker) and Mikal (Bridges) and Cam (Johnson) and the guys I’ve been around, they probably get tired of text messages at 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning about how they can get better, or something that I saw that I feel like can help them, but I have a responsibility to develop and help these guys become the best version of themselves. And I think Chris has always felt that.
“He feels a responsibility to make guys better. You may not like the way he does it sometimes but I think if you look at his heart and his intention, you’ll see a guy who might be one of the most competitive people you will ever, ever be around. I’ve witnessed it for myself, and I’d rather have that than guys who don’t want to win. Guys who are happy about coming out of the game, guys who don’t work. I’d rather have this than the opposite.”
“One of the most competitive human beings I’ve ever been around,” Green said of Paul. “I’m talking about at anything. It could be cards, ping pong, bowling — anything that you’re gonna play against him he’s gonna compete. He turns into a different person when he’s competing against you like that.”
With that, there’s a standard Paul sets.
“As a teammate, you gotta be just as competitive as he is or else it’s tough for him to look to his left and look to his right and not have guys he knows that are going to compete with him,” Green said. “And as a coach, I appreciate that. As a teammate, friend, coach — he’s going to raise the bar for everyone.”
During a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Paul didn’t play but might have still been the Suns player the most involved in the game. Every timeout he was having a conversation with at least one player or coach or official, and usually more.
A lot of that was with third-year center Deandre Ayton, a young player everyone watching closely the past two years knows needs a little push.
“The biggest part for both of those guys is that Chris needs Deandre too,” Green said.
Paul’s presence overall was such a drastic change from the way the bench used to look for the Suns. And remember, that was for a preseason game!
“He just takes time to teach guys and that’s just the natural leader in Chris,” Green said.
“You can feel his presence in the gym,” Booker said. “And it’s not necessarily you’re out there to impress him — you just know the level of play that he’s played at, the level of intensity and the level of competitive spirit he’s always performed at.”
That’s the invaluable aspect of Paul’s, erm, value. If Phoenix gets the median outcome from Paul’s stay, his impact will still be felt for years beyond that because of what he’s shown the younger core of the franchise.
“He brings an edge to the game. If you’re a young player, he’s just not gonna allow you to walk on the floor and not play up to that level,” Green said.
“He’s an ultra-competitor,” Booker said. “That’s why he has the resume he has.”
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