Why You Should Feel For Chris Paul

The slow beginnings of a long end.

Through a series of mitigating circumstances (okay, fine: “open clubs”), I was not able to watch Friday night’s game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the New Orleans Hornets. I typically try to avoid SportsCenter as I know it’s been eating away at my brain cells in the same way sucking nitrous would, which is to say, SportsCenter is good clean fun… making me dumber.

But since NBATV’s pumping reruns of “The Association” – or, as its more commonly known “Close Up of Ray Allen’s Abs” – I have no other option but to go to ESPN.com and knock out one of those 90-second Jalen Rose-assisted SportsCenter packages for actual live-game action.

This strategy turned out to be the highlight of my morning. Obviously. I mean, don’t get me wrong – ESPN “analysis” might as well be Black Death as far as I’m concerned, but the combination of back-slapping male camaraderie, fast-paced Hi-Def edits, and inadvertent hilarity feels like a drunken night on the town less the tab and the hangover.

I start laughing when Jalen uncorks his first punchline of the night: “Michael Jordan was the original… But Kobe Bryant is the (*gears up for best auto-tune miming delivery*) re-REMIX!” Queue Kobe dunk.

You need to know this: I have a mancrush on Jalen – he makes me laugh, he hates Duke, he likes to drink, he’s black. I’m sure we’d get along in real life. At one point – again, this is a 90-second clip, so the “hard-hitting” “journalism’s” coming fast and furious – Jalen narrates a shot of a crumbling Andrew Bynum with, “If you’re a Lakers fan, that’s the last thing you want to see.”

Now I’m rolling on the floor thinking of all the things I’d like less to see if I was indeed a Laker fan. The obvious: Kobe sustaining the same injury. The not so obvious: Lamar Odom metamorphosing into the guitarist from Extreme. Phil Jackson shooting Derek Fisher in the kneecap, then flashing a Crips sign to the camera. Poisonous toads falling from the sky a la Magnolia. Mexican terrorists igniting a giant vat of purple and gold slime courtside. Chris Angel. All these things would be worse than Andrew Bynum’s twisted knee.

Bff Jalen

So I’m dying. But a glimpse of CP3 always sobers me up. Last night he scored 22 points on 9 of 13 shooting in a third consecutive “vintage” Chris Paul performance. Per usual, he was methodical and efficient, if not explosive (though Fisher’s “uncle”-saying ankles might convince you otherwise). And when his team didn’t have much of a chance on Friday – let’s be real, this series is over – the ultimate failings of New Orleans are certainly no part of Chris Paul’s.

Anyways, to reign in a spiel that’s already been long hijacked by the comedic stylings of Mr. Rose, I’m going to give you this point of opinionated fact: Chris Paul cannot live with himself right now, but it’s not the losing or supreme mediocrity of his supporting cast that’s ripping away at his soul.

That would be last February’s knee injury.

I’ve thought about this a lot because I feel like the two of us have had a similar life trajectory, and by “have had a similar life trajectory”, I of course mean “we’re both males in our mid-20s.” And… that’s all.

But I imagine Chris Paul is also a perfectionist and one, at that, who makes a living from skill (as opposed to service, for instance). My number one greatest fear in life is the onset of permanent writers’ block. True story. Even more than death, the prospect of losing the ability to fully pursue that which gives you pride and, to a lesser extent, value keeps me up at night, usually with a notepad bedside.

Hell, I’m not even particularly good at what I do – not compared to Chris Paul – and, still, I can’t imagine having to wake up every morning with full knowledge whatever I do going forward will not be quite up to the standards of what I’ve done in the past.

This is the plight of every great athlete. Eventually. At some point. Chris Paul, days short of 26 and irrespective of what lying stats may suggest, is painfully past his prime. Barring some kind of semi-miraculous recovery of that bum left knee, he will never again perform to the level of his nascent, 23-year-old self. Not athletically, anyway. Perhaps with brains and guile, but not with body.

Now this isn’t to say Chris Paul derives all of his personal worth from basketball, though I assume – since he’s one of the 20 most talented humans on earth at such things  - this is a reasonable approximation of the case. So he’s going to have to deal with decline – every single morning when he looks in the mirror or turns on SportsCenter, he’s going to see decline.

You can be reasonably assured that Chris Paul, for all the fame, money and legacy, lives, at twenty-five, a haunted existed. So, too, does Brandon Roy, who multiple knee surgeries ago, seemed destined for similar NBA glories. After Portland’s game 2 loss to Dallas in which the former star spent eight pointless minutes withering away before your eyes, Roy admitted to fighting back tears on the bench when his coach sat him for the ho-hum likes of Rudy Fernandez and Patty Mills.

“There was a point in the first half when I was thinking, ‘You better not cry,’” Roy said after the game. “I mean, there was a moment when I felt really sorry for myself.” To this, some will call him a baby, or another spoiled athlete, or go to great lengths to embarrass a twentysomething, 4-year college graduate whilst pointing uppishly to the world’s greater ills. But I really feel for Brandon Roy. Crying, to me, seems like a perfectly reasonable response.

- Robbie