Chris Paul is just following the Leader

July 26, 2010

By Kevin O'Connor

Remember that old game called “Follow the Leader”. The person in the front of the line does something, like say sign a free agent contract with a team with two of his superstar Olympic teammates, and everyone else in line follows suit.

We’re following the leader. The leader. The leader. We’re following the leader, wherever he may go…

Welcome to the NBA in July of 2010, a league where superstars playing on a team without other superstars is akin to bringing a knife to a gun fight. When Lebron James and Chris Bosh joined forces with Dwayne Wade on the Miami Heat, the rest of the NBA took notice. Reigning two-time MVPs tend to create waves when they join another great player’s team. Call it unselfish, call it giving up, call it whatever you want. The fact is that Lebron has changed the NBA. (Check out this re-enactment of Lebron’s destruction of Cleveland from our resident cartoonist, Milton.)

Paul sees this, and he wants a piece of the pie. So naturally ESPN is reporting that he’s requested to be traded away from New Orleans, via anonymous sources. Yay! More rumored stories sources. (Didn’t we already leave this party?) Rumors are already swirling, and he’s either going to the Knicks to join Amar’e Stoudemire (and eventually Carmelo Anthony) or to Orlando to play with Dwight Howard, the latter of which sources close to him believe is his preferred choice. Ugh.

Can we really blame anyone in this situation? I say yes and no.

Lebron James has every right to sign and play with his BFF’s and “take his talents to South Beach” just as Chris Paul also has every right to want a realistic shot to win a title. In today’s NBA, he has no shot on the Hornets.

David West, Peja Stojakovic, Marcus Thornton, and Emaka Okafor — not a bad starting five, Paul included. But compare those names to some of the other starting lineups in the NBA, and do you think those five have a shot in hell against these teams?

Los Angeles Lakers

Derek Fisher
Kobe Bryant
Ron Artest
Pau Gasol
Andrew Bynum/Lamar Odom

Boston Celtics

Rajon Rondo
Ray Allen
Paul Pierce
Kevin Garnett
Kendrick Perkins/Jermaine O’Neal

Miami Heat

Mario Chalmers/Mike Miller
Dwyane Wade
Lebron James
Chris Bosh
Any 7-footer on the planet

Are we seriously expecting Paul — a guy who’s competitiveness led to some pissiness with Michael Jordan during a charity pool tournament — to look at some of those lineups and feel like the Hornets have a chance at winning a title anytime in the near future? If the best players in the league are all on the same four or five teams, that leaves the rest of the league with a lower class of players. For now, the NBA Championship discussion begins and ends with the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, and Miami Heat.

As for the rest of us who root for the other 27 NBA franchises? Enjoy watching teams with pretty much no chance for a championship.

You can’t blame the players for wanting to win. In fact, it’s a nice change of pace that these guys are more than willing to sacrifice individual numbers for a shot a postseason glory. Congratulations, sports fans, we’ve finally got the “unselfish” star players we’ve always wanted!!

With that said, the future of sports as we know it have irrevocably changed. And it’s not for the better.

“The Decision” was a new low for sports media coverage. Forget about how he ripped the hearts out of his hometown, championship-starved fans. An hour of programming to hear seven words was asking a little too much from the viewing public — not including the hours and hours and hours (and hours) of coverage on ESPN devoted entirely to debating where LBJ should go and why. He’s a great player and all, but for crying out loud we don’t need to spend our lives endlessly wondering where he’s going.

Lebron doesn’t live under a rock. He knows that the Worldwide Leader in Sports stopped everything to give him an hour of programming for free. If that’s not a boost to the old ego, I don’t know what is.

Other NBA superstars had to take notice as well. After watching the Lebron love-fest summer of ‘10, you know that the next group of stars that were born and bred in the reality TV era want a piece of that pie. In a world when teams usually hold all the cards, the players can sense the pendulum switching to their side of the court.

It’s also no coincidence that a proud man like Chris Paul is now publicly stating that he can’t win by himself. When the leader breaks rank and changes the rules, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of those in line follow suit.

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