Paul eager to start playing again
Rockets guard may be a week or two away
Chris Paul had plenty of distractions from his mental misery on Saturday.
There was practice with his Houston Rockets in the morning, with Paul getting another step closer to returning from the left knee injury that has sidelined him since Oct. 17. There was a charity event that followed, a feel-good affair in which the focus was rebuilding two middle schools that were damaged in Hurricane Harvey. And there were Paul family soccer games to keep track of remotely, with his 8-year-old son, “Lil Chris,” in one and 5-year-old daughter, Camryn, in the other.
If only for a day, the 32-year-old had a mental break from what has been a brutal start to his Rockets tenure after six years with the Los Angeles Clippers.
“Basketball is a huge part of my life, and I don’t get to do that,” Paul, who was promoting a new State Farm commercial that premieres on Wednesday, told USA TODAY by phone. “We’ve actually been on the road a lot, so it’s actually good to be home for a while. Just try to stay busy, and my wife tries to keep me sane.”
For competitors such as Paul, the only thing more maddening than losing is not being able to play.
This was supposed to be the early days of Paul playing alongside James Harden, with reigning Coach of the Year Mike D’Antoni trying to work his magic while they all learned how to co-exist. Instead, Paul banged his knee in a preseason game Oct. 11, struggled in the season opener and hasn’t played since.
“It’s going to set us back — no doubt about it,” D’Antoni, whose team improved to 8-3 with a 137-110 rout of the Utah Jazz on Sunday, told USA TODAY by phone. “There’s going to be a learning curve.”
As Paul and D’Antoni see it, the ninetime All-Star likely will return at some point in the next two weeks. He has made key progress in the last week, having gone from the boxing and water treadmill routine that helps maintain his wind to on-court activities.
Said D’Antoni: “Now he’s getting back on the floor, where he’s now shooting foul shots, shooting a little bit. He’s been working his butt off. … He’s going to be in shape, and he’s trying to take his anxiety and frustration out on working out. But it’s normal stuff. ... It’s (only) unique because he just got here, and we have all this going on.”
By this, he means the process of unseating the Golden State Warriors as NBA champs while integrating two of the best point guards in the NBA.
Paul routinely pulls 23-year-old big man Clint Capela aside, painting a picture of how they will make opponents pay when he returns.
He also pounds the point about their need to improve defensively.
“We won’t know really what we look like until I get back out there,” Paul said. “(But) man, I’m learning so much, so much. … I think the biggest thing that we talk about as a team is communication, so we’re trying to make sure we continue to get better and better at that — especially on the defensive end.
“Coming from a different team, you talk about what was the perception of this team when you were at another team. … We want to play up-tempo and all that different type of stuff, but it’s no secret that the NBA champions (for) the past six, seven years have all been top 10 in defense.”
D’Antoni has entrusted that end of the floor to assistant coach Jeff Bzdelik since last season. But Paul’s view, on that topic and many more, is being heard.
“He’s seeing things where we can get better, what we need to do,” D’Antoni said. “A lot of (his feedback) is personnel driven. He knows the league really well.”