Missing St. Paul

Chris Paul is a player whose ability nearly supercedes superlatives. The best point guard in the NBA. Undoubtedly one of the 5 best players in the league. A multiple time all star who lifts the play of his teammates as well as anyone. A gifted passer who can also get to the rim at will and shoot from anywhere on the floor, as well as one of the best ball hawking guards on defense. His game is nearly without flaw, and yet, due to circumstance alone, he is also saddled with a far less desirable superlative: The best irrelevant player in the NBA.

Look at the other players who occupy that illustrious top 5. Lebron James has been to the second round of the playoffs 4 straight years, the Finals once, and could very easily win his first title this year. Kobe Bryant just won a title and is the odds-on favorite to repeat. Dwyane Wade is on a team of improving young players and is a free agent this summer. Dwight Howard just lost in the Finals, and appears poised to get back.

The players immediately below Paul are doing nearly as well as those above him. Deron Williams is on a 16-11 team and has been to a conference finals. The Jazz will also have cap room this summer, and the team has generally drafted well. Kevin Durant is on a very good young Thunder team that appears to be growing into a title contender. Nash’s Suns are back to their old style, and they have an 18-9 record to show for it. Dirk’s Mavericks are 20-8 and seem to have finally recovered from their brutal finals defeat in 2006 and first round playoff exit in 2007. Tim Duncan has the Spurs treading water as they always do this time of year, undoubtedly leading to one of their patented runs in the second half of the season. Carmelo Anthony has finally assumed the mantle of leadership for his team, and appears ready to repeat a run deep into the playoffs. Garnett and Pierce have the Celtics at the top of the standings, and they will undoubtedly be a force in the playoffs.

None of this is terribly surprising. The best players nearly always play on good teams simply because of the impact one player can have on a basketball team. Comparing these circumstances to Paul’s, however, is nothing less than shocking. Paul has been to the playoffs twice, and past the first round only once. His team is currently 12-14, 8-10 in the games he has played. (Paul missed 8 games with an injury.) The Hornets second best player, David West, has slipped considerably from his 2 season peak, and was probably too lauded in making a pair of All-Star teams before this decline. The team’s cap situation is poor, their young players have not developed, and their fans are letting them know how they feel by not showing up to games. Perhaps worst of all for Paul, while Lebron and Wade will be free agents in 2010, Paul won’t be a free agent until 2012, ensuring 2 more seasons that will likely be notable mostly for their mediocrity.

Given all of this, it would be tempting to say the Paul simply isn’t as good as was previously thought. If one player can have such an inordinate impact of his team, then why isn’t Paul? The answer, of course, is easy: he is. They’re just that bad without him.

The year before Paul arrived in New Orleans, they were an abysmal 18-64. Baron Davis was hurt much of the year, then finally traded for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis. (If you haven’t heard of Claxton and Dale, there’s a reason: they weren’t that good.) The team had no other marquee players when they drafted Paul. They still jumped to 38-44 almost entirely because of his singular talents. Two years later the team was 56-26 and pushed the Spurs to a game 7 in the second round of the playoffs. Everything seemed to indicate that the team was becoming one of the contenders in the league, and given a young talent like Paul, they seemed likely to remain there for some time.

Last season, though, the errors in the strategy of Hornets’ management became clear. Peja Stojakovic was (and is) making more than 10 Million dollars a year to be an injury prone and defenseless shooter who can’t create his own shot. David West peaked as a nice second option without a very reliable post game and who couldn’t rebound as well as his position (power forward) required. Hilton Armstrong and Julian Wright are the best examples of the many draft picks that haven’t developed. Instead of keeping Tyson Chandler, whose play had declined but who had an attractive expiring contract to allow the team salary cap flexibility, the Hornets traded him for Emeka Okafor, who is essentially the player a healthy and effective Chandler was (possibly worse), but whose contract expires in 2014.

All of this ineptitude eventually translated to the court. While Paul was becoming one of the most dynamic and flawless point guards the NBA had ever seen, his teammates were becoming some of the worst in the league. They won 7 fewer games from 07/08 to 08/09, and that trend appears to be continuing this year. Particularly in the deep Western Conference, it appears likely that the team will miss the playoffs entirely.

We’re used to teams being bad, though. Teams like the Cubs and Browns are practically celebrated for it. It’s almost a necessity that some teams simply don’t figure it out, that some management groups are too inept to find success. There can only be so many winners, after all. Why, then, is this particular instance of mismanagement such a tragedy?

First, Paul’s irrelevance is so sad simply because of how fun it is to watch him play. He owns every aspect of his team. He is impossibly quick in every aspect of his game. Typically the smallest player on the court, he is also the most noticeable, his intensity permeating everyone around him. He plays with a reckless disregard for his body, completely unafraid of anyone, a quality most noticeable on his seemingly suicidal drives to the basket that somehow end with him making a shot over someone a foot taller than he is. He plays with an infectious passion at all times, alternating between a love-for-the-game smile and a nasty glare. Simply put, he is one of the most effective and entertaining players in the game.

Secondly, and most importantly, because basketball is supposed to be different than other sports. When talented basketball players know how to play team basketball, they’re supposed to be greeted with success. When once in a generation point guards can shoot from anywhere, play defense, drive past defenders at will, and get their teammates open shots in seemingly impossible situations, they’re supposed to be forces of nature within the league. We as fans want nothing less from the stars, because that’s what the NBA is: a league of stars. It’s a sport defined by the very best players and their teams, the character of which derives from said best player. Bird’s Celtics. Jordan’s Bulls. Kobe’s Lakers. Garnett’s Celtics. Wade’s Heat. Paul’s Hornets, or whatever team he plays for, deserve to be a member of that group. Or at least the group of teams that challenges those teams for titles, like those of Malone, Barkley, and Lebron.

This does not appear to be possible. The Hornets have painted themselves into a corner that they cannot easily get out of, both in terms of the quality of player they currently have and the quality they’re capable of obtaining. Paul has a contract through 2012, and the team would almost certainly not trade their only real asset.

Unfortunately, this makes Chris Paul irrelevant. Basketball is not a sport of loveable losers, or one where fans are accepting of failure, however sporadic. Basketball, rather, is a sport of realized and unrealized potential. Half the league makes the playoffs, and nearly all of the league’s most excellent players lie within that group. Those who don’t are perceived as too old, too young, too selfish, or simply too bad. Those rare players that can’t be forced into one of these groups are given different, more painful tags, like those applied to Iverson and Garnett. Selfish, too unselfish, can’t make their teammates better, overrated. The descriptions of players that all too often simply don’t have nearly enough help to realize their potential.

Paul, unfortunately, is the current representative of this group, and will undoubtedly hear these labels lobbed like verbal grenades. He will be subject to criticisms simply because he is the exception to the rule that great players make their teams great. In reality, he is simply a great player on a team so bad he can only make them mediocre.

So if you ever get the chance, watch him play. You won’t be disappointed, and in two and a half  years, when he flees New Orleans for a real team, you’ll be there already, knowing what everyone else was missing. If we all watch Paul, maybe we can make him relevant, no matter how bad his team is.

Or maybe we should just watch football. At least if your team sucks there, you can still watch guys hit each other.

Image via MultiChannel.com

You can email Chris with questions or comments at TheSportsKiosK@gmail.com