One of the greatest “what if” scenarios in NBA history is “what if Chris Paul had been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers?”
Would he have won championships with Kobe Bryant and Co.? Would he have been a cornerstone of the purple and gold? We will never truly know, but what we do know is that Chris Paul’s time in New Orleans would come to an end in a way that is rarely seen in the present day. Fearing that Paul would leave in free agency, the front office pursued a myriad of potential trades in an attempt to not lose him for nothing.
Despite the fabled trade to the Lakers ultimately being nullified, the front office would end up sending Paul to the other L.A. team that played in the Staples Center, the Los Angeles Clippers. And it was here where Paul truly became a household name. On the Clippers, the electric point guard from North Carolina would find several running mates that could keep up with his high-tempo style of play in Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan.
With two behemoths that possessed superhuman leaping ability and a ravenous hunger to attack the rim, Paul was more than happy to dish up a seemingly endless buffet of alley-oops that Griffin and Jordan would send screaming back down to Earth and through the net.
It was poetic that the “Lob City” Clippers felt like the second coming of the “Lake Show.” Whereas Magic Johnson used to dazzle crowds and defenses alike with his deft playmaking, Chris Paul was now the maestro of the most exciting team in the league. Every time they played in Staples Center, the Clippers made sure to treat opposing teams to the bright lights of L.A. It was magical. With his new teammates, Paul would once again find himself in the NBA playoffs.
In the following season, Chris Paul would further elevate his play to an otherworldly level. While averaging a points-assist double-double seems downright average today, it was ridiculous for an ‘undersized guard’ like Paul to dominate the game so effortlessly.
I vividly remember seeing the Clippers during these years and feeling it was all but a guarantee they would win a title. It felt like the championship was theirs for the taking. There were only a few teams that could compare to the Clips, at least on paper. But that’s the thing with being good ‘on paper.’ It means nothing if it doesn’t translate into real results.
In his first playoff appearance with the Clippers, Chris Paul and Co. would lose in the Conference semi-finals to the San Antonio Spurs in a sweep. However, this elimination was not taken too badly. No one had expected the Clippers to immediately win the championship. Also, the team they had lost to was a championship-caliber organization, and this was the first time the team had qualified for the playoffs since the 2005-06 season.
In the following postseason, the Clippers would perform worse in the playoffs, losing in the first round to the Memphis Grizzlies. Still, they had made the playoffs two years in a row. You could argue that this was still a step in the right direction for the organization. Yet for Chris Paul, it was yet another year chasing the golden ghost.
Despite the ghost of injury striking Chris Paul again during the 2013-14 season, the team enjoyed considerable success in the regular season. The Clippers would win a franchise-best 57 games on their way to the playoffs. They would advance past the first round, beating the Golden State Warriors in seven games. Looking back, this is neatly ironic. But more on that later.
In the second round, the Clippers would lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games. At this point, it had been three seasons with Chris Paul and all three had gone more or less the same way: a successful regular season that made his team look like a genuine title contender, only for them to flame out in the second round at best.
In the aftermath of the LAC-OKC series, Chris Paul took responsibility for the loss. Which is also ironic. For a game where great players are quick to take credit for their team’s success, few are willing to accept the responsibility when the team fails. Unfortunately, there are no championships for losing with grace.
But then the 2014-15 season came and it felt like all the pieces had fallen into place. Chris Paul did not miss a single regular season game, remaining injury free while leading the league in assists. Averaging a points-assist double-double once more would ensure the Clippers a playoff berth where they’d see a familiar foe in the Spurs. In a seven-game series, Chris Paul and the Clippers would avenge their previous defeat to the Spurs when Chris Paul hit a series-clinching shot with just a second left on the clock. A marvelous display of guts as Paul was battling a hamstring injury.
While this injury would keep him out for the first two games of the team’s second-round series against the Houston Rockets, it didn’t seem to matter. Going up 3 games to 1, it looked like the Clippers would surely prevail and move on to the Conference finals. But there’s a reason the saying “It’s not over until it’s over” exists. And this series was a painful illustration of that.
In a defeat that has gone down in NBA infamy, the Clippers would blow their 3-1 lead, losing to the Clippers and being eliminated from the playoffs. And to add insult to injury, this would be the tenth straight season and seventh straight playoff appearance Chris Paul would experience without reaching the Conference Finals.