Chris Paul is one of the greatest point guards to have played in the NBA, and not even a troubled past kept him from becoming one of the most impactful players in the league.
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No matter what team CP3 joins, they always seem to improve. He took the New Orleans Hornets to the playoffs after around three years in the league, and then when he was traded to the Los Angeles Clipppers, he made them dark horse contenders in the Western Conference for a solid while.
CP3 along with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan created ‘Lob City’, bringing excitement to a team that hadn’t had much to root for the longest time.
Then, when he was traded to the Houston Rockets, he immediately helped take them to the Western Conference Finals and a franchise record 65 wins. The Rockets almost knocked off the invincible Golden State Warriors as well, taking them to game seven, a game many people felt they would have would have won if Paul hadn’t been injured.
Then, when the Thunder acquired him, Paul took a team that was slated to have less than a 1% chance to make the playoffs to seven games against the Houston Rockets in the first round of the bubble playoffs. With the Suns, Paul has turned Phoenix into a championship contender, with them reaching the Finals last year and winning 64 games and finishing with the one seed this year.
Everywhere he goes, improvements follow. It’s always been that way for Chris Paul. He’s ready to sacrifice at any moment, and he displayed these habits all the way back in high school too.
Chris Paul refused to set a state record because of his grandpa’s death
While Paul was growing up, he formed a very tight bond with his grandfather. He would work at his grandpa’s servics stations during the summers, and he ended up spending a lot of time with the man who first dubbed him CP3.
In high school, Paul was a beast, being named a McDonald All American and having a full ride to Wake Forest college. However, the day after Paul accepted his full scholarship, his grandfather was brutally murdered. Paul took time to grieve, but his high school had a game just five days later.
CP3 chose to play, and he absolutely torched the court that night. He was at 61 points in the game when he asked to be taken out. Why? His grandpa was 61 years old when he died, and CP3 wanted to pay tribute to him by scoring one point for every year that his grandfather had lived. He left the game with 61 points, only six points away from a state record.
However, the record wasn’t important to Paul. It was his grandfather’s night in his eyes, and he made sure to get to exactly 61 points. It’s an incredible story, and you can find more details in this Twitter thread.
