Chance to shine
Jerome Solomon writes that a golden opportunity presents itself for NBA veteran and Rockets guard Chris Paul.
A mere 10 years ago in real time, the 2007-08 NBA season seems to be such a distant day, a different age.
How far back is 10 years? The Rockets suited up a leaguehigh 21 players that season. The only one in the league is some guy named Gerald Green, who played a total of four minutes in the one game in which he appeared in that season.
The worst team in the Western Conference was the Seattle SuperSonics, whose owners hadn’t yet become snakes on the plains, as they were so aptly described by now-retired San Antonio Express-News columnist Buck Harvey.
The most popular team in Oklahoma City was the Redhawks minor league baseball squad or the New Orleans Hornets, who had temporarily relocated there for two seasons in the aftermath of Katrina.
The 2007-08 season, the Hornets’ first back in the Crescent City, was the breakout year for Chris Paul, the Hornets’ dynamic young point guard, who finished second in the Most Valuable Player voting to the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.
An early phenomenon
Paul and the Hornets were set to dominate the league for years to come after the most exciting season in franchise history ended in Game 7 of the conference semifinals against the defending champion Spurs.
At the time, New Orleans coach Byron Scott’s salve for coming up short after pushing the favored Spurs to the brink, was the thought that the defeat could prove to be a PistonsCeltics, Bulls-Pistons circa mid-1980s lesson. You know, the NBA tale of the upstart learning from and eventually overcoming the master.
Turned out, the scar tissue Scott described after the series, is just a scar. The growing pains, as Paul termed them then, turned out to be just pain.
They are among the many scars and pains Paul has suffered in a sterling — and, unfortunately, Sterling — NBA career.
Now, three weeks shy of his 33rd birthday, Paul has done it all as a basketball player, except deliver on his championship promise. Or even come close.
He has competed in 76 playoff games, giving him the dubious distinction of having appeared in more playoff games than any player to have never been to a conference final.
Paul’s first playoff run with the Rockets, which begins Sunday at home against Minnesotaa, is his best opportunity to advance that far (or further) since he torched the Spurs in a losing effort 10 years ago.
“The kid’s a winner,” said Scott, who coached Paul for his first four seasons. “He plays with his heart on his sleeve and he leaves it out there every night. And, most importantly, he cares about winning. He doesn’t care about individual success, he doesn’t care about the money, he cares about winning.”
Scott applauds pairing
Scott, who was in town for the Advocates USA Spring Invitational golf tournament at the Golf Club of Houston, said Paul has a special opportunity.
Not only does he have a superstar lead scorer in James Harden with whom to run, but the Rockets’ depth and “better than advertised” defense takes a lot of pressure off Paul.
The Rockets finished the season with a franchise-record 65 wins. Of the 16 NBA teams that won at least 65 games and was the only 60-game winner in a season, 14 of them went on to win the championship. Only the 1973 Celtics and 2007 Mavericks came up short.
“People that questioned whether this would work with James Harden and Chris Paul, didn’t see that you have two guys that really want to win,” Scott said. “They have put egos aside and put together a strong roster that will be tough to beat. Obviously, now he is in a much better situation here in Houston than any he has ever been, with a better team than he has ever played on. Watching him this season, this is the happiest I have seen him in a long time.”
Since he was traded to the Rockets last offseason, Paul has been strutting around Toyota Center humming Johnny Nash.
Before joining the Rockets, Paul played for two franchises (the Hornets and Clippers) that have never been past the second round of the playoffs.
Paul says the Rockets are approaching the postseason with the thought the first team to win 16 games is the champ.
A cap on his career
There is more to it than that personally for the nine-time All-Star. After all, he has never been on a team that has won even half that many playoff games in a season.
“He puts a lot of pressure on himself because of what people have said in the press about him not being able to get to the Finals,” Scott said. “He wants that so badly, to win a championship. I think it would complete his résumé, in his mind. But in my mind, the way he’s played in his career, he is a Hall of Famer, not matter what the outcome is. Critics are going to be critics. Some great players don’t ever make it. That wouldn’t diminish what he has been able to accomplish in is NBA career.”
Valid points, but unless and until Paul is on a team that makes a serious run at a title, he will be listed among the greats known almost as much for what they didn’t do than what they did.
As much as times have changed since Paul was supposed to take over the league, he remains a dynamic point guard seeking postseason validation of his greatness.
He might never have a better chance than he has now.