The Clippers have been the most disappointing team in the NBA through the first quarter of the season. Currently just 5-16 and losers of 14 of their last 16 games, the team made the shocking move late last night to cut ties with Chris Paul, abruptly ending his return to the team and putting the final act of his career into question.
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Paul had some of his best years as a Clipper when he spent six years as the mayor of Lob City from 2011-17. He came back this offseason in the hopes that he could help guide a team with high expectations and a veteran core in Kawhi Leonard, James Harden and Bradley Beal to playoff glory, but nothing has gone right for the Clips after a 3-2 start.
Former Clipper Lou Williams provided some insight into why this all went down the way it did on today’s episode of the Run It Back podcast. “There was a few scenarios where CP was holding people accountable,” Williams said.
“From players to staff, from coaching staff up to the front office, and from what I understand there was a situation where he even addressed the team and apologized and said, ‘Look, my criticisms are coming from a good place. I want us to be a good team, I want us to get this thing right,'” he explained.
Apparently the organization didn’t take it too well, and Williams said that it was Paul’s criticism of the front office that was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
This entire season has been a PR disaster for the Clippers, from the Kawhi Leonard-Aspiration scandal that was uncovered by Pablo Torre, to Bradley Beal’s season-ending injury, to the terse an enigmatic comments from Harden recently when asked about the team’s performance.
Cutting a future Hall-of-Famer in the middle of the night, someone who helped the organization achieve more success than it had seen in decades, is just an awful look, especially when Paul had spoken openly about wanting to retire a Clipper. Is there any way he’ll have his jersey retired one day after this? It’s really difficult to envision him being on good enough terms for that now.
Paul is just the latest Clipper to be unceremoniously dumped by the team, and though general manager Lawrence Frank said that he wasn’t blaming Paul for the team’s lackluster performance. But it’s a real indictment on the organization that his biggest crime seems to be wanting to hold people accountable and establish a higher standard.
It’s not yet known if Paul will land with another team, but no matter what, this is an ugly way to end his career with the Clippers and a situation that could have been handled much, much better.
