Now referring to him as his mentor, could Paul decide to return home next year and make Jordan his boss?
Paul won't rule it out.
"It would definitely be something to think about," the New Orleans guard said Tuesday when asked about the potential to sign with the Jordan-owned Charlotte Bobcats in 2012.Not happening. There's no way Chris Paul signs with a team that currently has no other star power on the roster. If he wanted to be stuck on a team with limited star power he would stay in New Orleans.
"But right now it's all about trying to win a championship here with the Hornets."
As you can tell from Paul's discussing of where he may potentially, just maybe, possibly sign a year from now...Chris Paul is all about the "now" and not where he may end up next summer.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press to promote Saturday's Jordan Brand Classic high school basketball All-Star game in Charlotte, Paul alternated praise for Jordan while stressing that his immediate concern is the Hornets' impending first-round playoff series.
Well, that and figuring out which team he would want to play with in 2012 when he becomes a free agent. Not that he is planning on becoming a free agent in 2012, because a person who knows he will be a free agent then would have thought about this and Chris Paul doesn't think about these things. He stays in the "now."
"I'm one of those people who tries to stay in the moment," the four-time All-Star point guard said.
Like right "now," he won't rule any teams out in 2012 when he becomes a free agent. Not that he's thought about this, because he hasn't...but if he had thought about it, the Bobcats are an NBA team, and therefore a team he won't rule out playing for.
It was that kind of sway Charlotte fans were hoping the six-time NBA champion would have when he bought the team last year.
"I think guys do and will want to play for MJ," Paul said. "Who better to learn from?"
This is all just lip service. Chris Paul is not going to play for a team that doesn't have 1-2 All-Stars in place on the roster already. He's played the game where he is the best player on the team and has a supporting cast of decent, serviceable players and one other player he can count on (David West). He won't do this again. So, I never will believe Paul will play for Charlotte unless Charlotte all of a sudden gets a much better team around him."Now that he has a team, he's like a kid in a candy store," Paul said of Jordan. "He's so happy because he's one of those guys that no matter what, he can't get away from the game."
By "the game," Chris Paul means Michael Jordan can't get away from golf.
Jordan has said the Wallace deal was meant to create financial flexibility so they can beef up the roster in the next few seasons.
He's cleared up some room so he can make further team-destroying signings in an attempt to be relevant. I have always loved the idea a team like the Bobcats that has shown a history of management making bad choices is freeing up salary cap room for financial flexibility. As if having more money to spend will make them smarter or draft better.
"I thought about it then when I got drafted," Paul said of the potential of playing pro ball in his home state. "But that feels like that was so long ago now."
The only way Chris Paul will be playing basketball in Charlotte, North Carolina is in another team's uniform playing a road game.
Paul has been through a lot since, from the Hornets' temporarily relocation to Oklahoma City because of Hurricane Katrina
I am sure it was very traumatic for Paul to be forced to play basketball in Oklahoma City as thousands of people lost their lives and possessions to a hurricane. He's such a trooper.
Soon, Paul will decide where to continue his career.
BUT HE'S FOCUSED ON THE "NOW!"
Chris Paul won't be in Charlotte unless Dwight Howard and another star is in Charlotte as well. Paul isn't stupid and isn't going to sign with a team that won't give him an immediate shot to win an NBA title. So I just laugh at a story that says Chris Paul will consider playing for the Bobcats. It's just funny to hear.
I still haven't found a replacement for Joe Morgan and his chats. I am still soliciting suggestions. Rob Dibble isn't chatting at this present time (in whatever capacity he is currently in), I checked out the guy at Fangraphs and he is just condescending at times, but not necessarily worthy of a weekly chat. I still may cover one of his though. I have my eye on every baseball chat ESPN is doing, but it appears there is no replacement for Joe Morgan. Any suggestions? There has to be one person who chats. Why doesn't Murray Chass host a weekly chat?
10 comments:
How much longer will Jordan be able to ride his "greatest player ever" title into destroying franchises half-heartedly while spending his free time playing golf?
How long has Donald Sterling been running the Clippers, or Herb Kohl the Bucks? I know it's fashionable to bash Jordan the executive, but this is pretty weak. He probably plays less golf than the President of the United States. All owners do stupid shit in their free time, I'm sure, nobody is jonesing on running an NBA franchise 24/7. Hell, the commissioner of the league can't be arsed to be near basketball most of the time and doesn't even stick around for the second round of the draft every year, so obviously everybody in the NBA thinks they have more important things to do than follow the NBA.
I have always loved the idea a team like the Bobcats that has shown a history of management making bad choices is freeing up salary cap room for financial flexibility. As if having more money to spend will make them smarter or draft better.
Yeah? So? Should they stop trying? I'm not really sure what your point here is except that you really want to reach to knock Jordan some more. If they didn't free up money and kept their 33 win team you'd bash it as a dumb move all the same, so why bash them doing something that could help them improve.
And for the record, franchises have done this exact sort of thing and seen it pay off before. The Atlanta Hawks were a far bigger joke than the Bobcats when they did the trade for Joe Johnson. They didn't become smarter or draft better(Marvin Williams over Chris Paul) but the team has made the playoffs a few times now.
Regardless if they land Paul or whoever, teams going nowhere need to give themselves an opportunity to improve. I'm not sure why any of them should be singled out and mocked for at least trying to put themselves in a better position to be competitive.
On a completely different note, this article is so remarkably stupid it has started getting national attention:
http://www.observer-reporter.com/or/steigstory/04-10-2011-Steigerwald
Apparently it's more grown-up to take oneself way too fucking seriously and blame the victim of a brutal beating at a sporting event than to wear a sports jersey to a game without expecting to get brutally beaten. If it's childish to wear a jersey to a game then what does that make the jackasses who beat someone up for wearing a jersey to a game? Or a paid columnist who writes about how people should treat what they wear to a game like it's serious business?
Yeah, doubtful he plays less golf then the President, since Jordan is a known golf addict. It was one of the major complaints against him when he was with the Wizards, he spent more time away from the organization and on the course then he did in the office. Yet he still insisted on making personnel decisions. Kwame Brown anybody?
Sterling isn't riding his greatest player ever reputation as an owner. He's riding a fat check book. He's a lousy owner, but never had any reputation as being a basketball person. Jordan gets a free Isiah Thomas pass to being incompetent because of his playing reputation. He's done nothing to show he has the talent or desire to put in the effort to be a good GM. Bird, Ainge, they might not be all that as GM's, but at least they are efforting.
The Bucks were mediocre before Khol bought them, and they're mediocre now, so not sure I understand the point of that comparison.
When the only thing a team like the Bobcats does well is clear cap space, then yes, they should stop trying....to clear cap space. What they need to do is make smarter trades and draft better so they can use the cap space they have to retain their own good players. Instead they seem to be in the endless spiral of trading for cap space, bad draft, trade for cap space.... They have a decent team right now. Build from there.
Sun, I see what you are saying, but there were serious questions in Charlotte when Jordan took over the team whether he had the drive to be a full-time owner. Then there were questions if he did decide to be a full-time owner if he could put together a good team. I am not sure if both questions have been answered.
I was not saying they should stop trying or anything like that. Of course I wasn't saying that. I was saying a team with a history (albeit short) like the Bobcats haven't shown no matter how much salary cap room they have that a good team can be put together. Last year's team seems to be the exception. They gave their best trade chip away to Portland in Gerald Wallace.
This post really wasn't supposed to be about the Bobcats, though I guess I sort of made it that way. It was supposed to be about Chris Paul and how he won't be in Charlotte. The idea he will be on the current form of the team is ridiculous. I don't bash teams that try to improve and show they can, but I bash them when they bullshit their fan base into believing they are clearing cap room for some mysterious plan I don't see occurring.
Atlanta didn't draft better, other than drafting Al Horford, Josh Smith and really Marvin Williams wasn't a terrible overall miss. But they did make good free agent moves/trades that helped them become good in getting Mike Bibby. I don't believe the Bobcats have shown the ability to put a team together and keep that team together like that.
Charlotte can believe all they want that Chris Paul is coming their way, I am not going to get on them for that. What I will get on Chris Paul for doing is pretending he has interest in Charlotte b/c Michael Jordan is there when he also needs free agents like Dwight Howard on the roster to actually decide to end up in Charlotte.
Maybe they will make themselves competitive, but Chris Paul won't be in Charlotte and that's what this post was supposed to be about. I got off topic a bit I guess.
That article is stupid. Why would someone who wears the jersey get blamed and who cares if a person wears a jersey to a game? Wearing a jersey isn't about a delusional attempt to be a part of the team, but a way to support the team. I think it is asshole fans and not a jersey that causes incidents like the beating of that fan. Really, wearing a jersey is the problem?
Martin, that whole cycle is what I was intending to talk about. I don't believe Jordan has the skills and wanting to put a good team together. He may try, but I don't know if he will succeed. Hey, maybe all the cap room will convince some players to come to Charlotte. Who knows? But I wouldn't bet on it.
I didn't think the Bobcats were in that bad of shape this year at the beginning of the year and it has spiraled down quickly. Chris Paul probably won't be the answer to that spiral.
@Martin:
Kwame Brown wasn't a great pick but let's not pretend that overrating him was exclusive to Jordan. He was the consensus #1 on draft boards. Washington may have taken him there no matter who was their GM. Nobody has a crystal ball to tell them which guy will go bust, otherwise Joe Dumars wouldn't have drafted Darko Milicic ahead of Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade. It happens every year, some GMs are worse at it than others but even good ones will fuck it up on occasion, too. And it's not because Dumars spends too much time golfing.
The president is by all accounts a "golf addict" too. His political opponents have made plenty of hay that he will say "I will not rest until BP plugs the hole" then goes and hits the links once the press conference is over. Comparing their amount of time played is not the point anyways, the point is that the president has much more important things to do than an NBA owner yet is also on the golf course a lot. It's the cool thing to rag on Jordan for it, because unlike other NBA owners every move he does will be followed by cameras. And you know what? Jordan was a "known golf addict" in the prime of his playing career, too. If he was able to devote time to both basketball and golf then why the heck would he not be able to now? The executives you may prefer do various things away from "efforting" at being a GM, too, you just don't see sportswriters bitch about it. You think Jordan's coasting on his playing reputation, yet all I see are writers complaining about and insulting his executive ability because he's not as good at it as he was a player.
You obviously need to learn a little more about the pre-1985 Milwaukee Bucks. They may have only won one title(in their third year of existence) but they were far from mediocre. While playing in the NBA's smallest arena they were winning 50-60 games a year under Don Nelson. Kohl took over, quickly ran out Nelson and has only had one 50-win season since. The comparison is in the original comment about "destroying franchises half-heartedly." Kohl's got business and political interests that take precedence over the Bucks, yet he still has enough time to routinely blow up the team with crappy personnel decisions because he doesn't seem willing to concede that he may not be the best basketball mind out there.
So your solution is to "make smarter trades and draft better." In other words, build a better team. Wow! I bet MJ never thought of that! That's why Danny Ainge sucked so epically as a GM in Boston, it just never occurred to him until 2007 that trading for someone like Kevin Garnett was a good way to improve a team!
Sorry to get snippy but that's the sort of analysis I see get ripped on in this very site all the time. Of course he should do better trades, but it's not like every team can steal a Garnett or a Pau Gasol. Remember that both Ainge and Kupchak were on the hot seat before doing those deals, they didn't have this track record of brilliance and did something no other GM would do. Well, okay, Kupchak did pay Kwame Brown(him again!) more than any other GM would have, which sadly is what helped them land Gasol, but let's not delve into that too much because it hurts my point.
You know the best way to get into an endless cycle? Never clear cap space. Do you not remember exactly why the Knicks could never get out from under Isiah's bad decisions? Because he kept making trades where he gave up expiring deals for bigger contracts until he had a bunch of guys he couldn't move anymore. Then he got fired, the Knicks cleared cap space, they signed a couple guys and finally got better.
(will continue in next response, I didn't realize until now there was a character limit here! I guess I never had this much to say before.)
@Martin cont'd:
I'm also amazed that you think they have "a decent team right now" even after all the bashing of Jordan's decisions, and that they have anything to build around. Seriously, who are their building blocks? Stephen Jackson and Boris Diaw? People want to argue against Jordan from both directions--one second he's an awful decision maker who hasn't built a team worth a damn, the next he's got a team to build upon if only he would give them a chance! Seriously, do you want him more involved or less involved? Should he get better players or should he keep the ones he's got? Or are you going to say he's doing it wrong either way until Charlotte starts winning titles?
The spiral they've gotten into is a result of always being too good to tank a full season and get a high draft pick(which worked for teams like the Spurs, Celtics, Nuggets and Cavs to get out of their own ruts) but not good enough to make the playoffs. Basically, where Mitch Richmond's Sacramento teams spent their days. Danny Granger's Pacers would also apply. It's an awful place to be, and I can't blame a team for wanting to get away from it.
They kept the playoff team from last year intact, but got worse this year, the key players aren't young enough to imagine getting better so they're trying something different. It's not ideal but what they're doing makes sense, and it's what most franchises in a similar spot would be doing, more or less.
For the record my intent is not to say Jordan's a great decision maker, either. Just that the criticisms of him could be applied to most executives and franchises who aren't lucky enough to land a Kobe or a LeBron or a Duncan. There are plenty of fair criticisms to make--the Gerald Wallace deal was bad because it seems like he should have gotten more in return. Wallace should have been more than a straight salary dump, but the best he got were a playoff team's draft picks? But saying that he shouldn't have done the move because a 33-win team is "decent" and a near-30-year-old Wallace is something to build upon seems unfair.
@Ben:
Charlotte's not really bullshitting their fan base about Paul that I can see, Paul was asked a question and gave a vague response that the writer tried to make seem like something more. LeBron or Wade probably would have given the same answer one year ago. Jordan's own comments don't seem to mention Paul specifically, just the idea that cap space will allow them to pursue new players.
I thought they had something building with Jason Richardson, Wallace and Emeka Okafor. Get a point guard and another big man to join those three and you might have something. But from what I remember it was reportedly Larry Brown who insisted on trading away everyone(although I could be wrong, since I'm not privy to conversations between Brown and Jordan) and they ended up with a weird collection of solid but unspectacular veterans like Diaw, Jackson and Nazr Mohammed. Also Tyson Chandler but Brown didn't seem to play him much. Without cap space this past offseason they lost Ray Felton, and while I don't think Felton = 10 wins by himself there was obviously something off about the team this year. On the whole I would agree that I don't know how the Bobcats are going to build up a winner from here, and I agree that Paul is likely giving lip service. But the Bobcats clearing up cap space is a logical move, because then they can either sign or trade for someone to make them better, or they'll suck enough to get a high draft pick and hope they end up with the next Derrick Rose and not the next Kwame Brown/Darko Milicic. Like I said before, it's not ideal, but it's also not a completely inept strategy.
Some players might be intrigued by joining up with Jordan, but you're right that Paul is almost certainly not going to be one of them. He'll need something more than that. So far we haven't seen anyone else from the Jordan brand show Charlotte love for that alone, I doubt CP3 will be the first.
I never before thought of wearing a jersey as a lame attempt to be a part of a team or to cling onto being a child. I always thought of it as something you can do to show you're a fan, nothing more or less. I also never knew that being beaten up for wearing a jersey was always the victim's fault, either. I can't believe someone gets paid to write things like that.
Sun, the greatest criticism you can say to me is "that's the sort of analysis I see get ripped on in this very site all the time." I am going to go hide away for a few days in shame.
Part of the problem with Charlotte is that the state is that Michael Jordan is worshipped and everyone was blinded by his UNC affiliation to see hiring Larry Brown was a short term hire that wouldn't pay off in the long run. That's just my opinion. From the day he was hired, the clock on when Brown was benching young players and losing patience had begun.
Maybe Charlotte is inadvertently bullshitting their fan base by having Paul mentioned to be coming to Charlotte. It is not like a Bobcats official said anything about Paul's comments, so that is true. I just liked how Paul said he would consider the Bobcats, which is the PC answer, but just isn't happening in the current form of the team.
It wouldn't shock me if it was Larry Brown who demanded those guys all get traded away. He hates playing young players and doesn't trust them, so it wouldn't shock me if he was one who wanted to make the moves.
I liked the Bobcats somewhat as they were last year and don't mind them blowing it up, I just have doubts about what they will be able to do with the cap room. They aren't the Knicks and don't have anything great, other than playing for Jordan, to lure the fan base. Charlotte should build a team the way OKC builds a team (at least in my opinion), rather than try to attract big name free agents.
Cap room is good as long as Charlotte has options of what to do with the cap room, and I don't think they will have too many options. I would just hate to see them overpay players who aren't elite just to spend the cap money.
In regard to that jersey article, I had someone email me about it as well. I appreciate the tips and it has me fired up so I will have to fit it in here at some point.
Recall that OKC's plan began in Seattle with dumping the salaries of Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen. They've done a fine job since but at the time they were hit pretty hard over those decisions.
Overpaying for less than elite players would definitely put them in another spiral. It's what Detroit did with Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva(and Kwame Brown yet again, but at least that contract was short-term), and what Milwaukee did some time back with Dan Gadzuric, Charlie Bell and Bobby Simmons. We'll see which path Charlotte takes.
Sun, that is a good point. The Bobcats just have to draft as well as the Thunder/Sonics did. I question whether they can do that, but we'll see.
All I know is, Chris Paul won't be a part of the Bobcats rebuilding plan unless something major changes.
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