When Chris Paul was sent to to the Oklahoma City Thunder, I thought his career had reached its twilight.
It had been 14 years since he’d first arrived in the NBA, and he was starting to show the effects of age. No matter your skill set or your greatness, no athlete can outlast Father Time. The injuries had piled up, new stars were being made in the NBA, and older ones like Chris Paul seemed to be fading.
After more than a decade on championship contenders, the former MVP would be sent to a team that was deep in the rebuilding stage. It seemed that the veteran guard would spend the remainder of his career mentoring the future stars of the league. A noble end to an excellent career. Even without the championship ring he had desired, Chris Paul could at least take solace in the fact that he was seen as a guaranteed Hall of Fame candidate when he finally hung up his signature shoes.
Many lauded him as one of the greatest point guards to ever play the game, including Sports Illustrated. And he wasn’t the only great player to have never won a championship. Greatness is not always measured in gold, and players like Paul are emblematic of that.
And so, that was the final chapter of Chris Paul’s career…or so we thought.
In a tale full of poetic irony, Chris Paul would rise from his apparent ashes, and after a year in Oklahoma where the Thunder exceeded all expectations, Paul would be traded to the Phoenix Suns. At the time, the Suns were a team on the rise. Like the Thunder, they had exceeded expectations in the previous season, and in the bubble, they would go on an impressive winning streak, even if ultimately they did not qualify for that year’s playoffs.
Initially, it seemed that Paul was moving from a rebuilding team to one that was merely in the middle of the pack. To everyone’s surprise, the Suns would go from winning just 34 games the previous season to 51, helping them clinch their first playoff appearance since the 2009-10 season.
In those playoffs, Chris Paul would turn back the clock in several key games including scoring 37 points on 74 percent shooting in Game 4 of the western conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets to punch their ticket to the Conference finals. Up until this point, this had been the closest Chris Paul had ever gotten to a championship.
Once again, four games stood between Paul and the Finals, and once again Paul would be sidelined during the series. For a moment I was seeing flashes of Chris Paul’s time in Houston, and I can imagine he felt the same. But this time, his team would not meet the same end. In six games they would dispatch the Los Angeles Clippers, earning a spot in the playoffs. The first Finals berth in 50 years for the Suns, and the first ever for Chris Paul.
Ultimately Chris Paul would not taste championship gold, as the Milwaukee Bucks would go on to win in six games. To their credit, the Suns would not go quietly, with every game being a hard-fought affair. Some may argue that coming this close only to fail is more painful than not getting close at all. But that’s up to personal opinion.
Following this, Paul would make several more tries for the title with a variety of teammates. Sadly he would not make another Finals appearance, this time with the Suns even while continuing to rake in accolades. For Paul, however, I can imagine that these accolades are little consolation for the ultimate prize. Because for all the hardware in his trophy cabinet, there’s nothing that quite compares to the Chalice of Larry ‘O Brien.