The Los Angeles Clippers and point guard Chris Paul are splitting up. The team is awful. They've lost five straight and eight of nine, and their last three wins—they've only got five total, in 21 games—have come against the Hornets, who are crud; the Mavericks, who are crud; and the Pelicans, who make crud look like a banana split. Paul, who last month leaked his impending retirement, presumably so that he could enjoy a months-long farewell tour, was playing about 14 minutes a game for the Clippers as a reserve. Now a free agent, Paul can offer five months of whatever is left of his vitality to anyone in the market for a rapidly declining middle-aged rotation guard who doesn't like to shoot and who has the mobility and defensive utility of a Roomba.
Usually when an ancient but honored veteran leaves a collapsing team midseason, it is so that he can chase a ring elsewhere, and the course is chosen by mutual consent. That appears not to have been the case with Paul and the Clippers: Paul, in a social media dispatch posted late Tuesday night, described being abruptly "sent home" by the team, which is presently in Atlanta to face the Hawks. Team president Lawrence Frank later told ESPN that while "no one is blaming" Paul for the Clippers playing like total shit, he has nevertheless decided to unceremoniously jettison the best player in franchise history. "We are parting ways with Chris and he will no longer be with the team," Frank said in a text, reported by ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "We will work with him on the next step of his career."
Former Clipper and current pundit Lou Williams reported some things that would seem to confirm what was implied by the odd timing and stilted language around Paul's release. According to Williams, Paul was jettisoned because the front office got sick and tired of him being so critical of the organization. This was followed up by ESPN insider Shams Charania reporting that Paul's "leadership style clashed with the Clippers," and that he and head coach Ty Lue had not been on speaking terms for weeks. Charania's report has the waft of having originated on Paul's side, noting that Paul "has been vocal in holding management, coaches and players accountable." While the Clippers do suck turbo ass, and while they do deserve to be yelled at, I can imagine that being a tough routine to accept from the vestigial old retiring guy, who also sucks a lot.
Having already savaged Paul's utility as a rotation guard, it is now time for me to acknowledge that the old fellow started 82 games and played nearly 2,300 minutes last season for the San Antonio Spurs. By at least that measure, there is reason to believe that he can still survive on an NBA floor, in the very most literal sense, in that he can stand there without immediately kerploding. Worse players have had bigger jobs for NBA teams just this season: A solid double-handful of them suited up for the Washington Wizards just last night. But nothing in Paul's performance in this final run with the Clippers suggests that he should have a role on a team with even the faintest of playoff aspirations. In this managed gig, Paul is putting up just over seven points per 36 minutes, and is shooting just 32 percent from the floor, and the Clippers are a heartbreaking 17 points per 100 possessions worse on offense when he takes the court. For all his guile and good intention, Paul is simply too small and slow to be a defensive plus; if he also cannot run a competent offense, even with shabby supporting pieces, it is going to be all but impossible for his team to survive his minutes. The Clippers have not been surviving his minutes: Per Cleaning the Glass, which filters out garbage time, the Clippers are eight points worse by net efficiency when Paul is in the mix.
It is probably time for Paul to acknowledge that he can chase a ring from the far end on the bench someplace, minding his business good-naturedly, or he can pursue his final opportunity to play regular minutes for an NBA team, but he cannot do both. Pursuing the latter would by definition mean landing someplace entirely unserious (Sacramento). The Clippers, themselves deeply unserious, cannot realistically do worse for a backup guard than the tiny ornery guy with the 41 percent true shooting. Whether they signed Paul for sentimental reasons or because they thought he could function in lineups, it will hurt their basketball product not at all to give his roster spot to someone else, and if it helps their astoundingly bad team chemistry, so much the better. Whatever social instincts Udonis Haslem possessed that made it worth it for Miami to carry him around like heavy luggage for the better part of a decade are evidently not shared by Paul. The Clippers have had enough of his shit.
As a basketball outfit, the Clippers are in an all-hands-on-deck situation, cascading down the Western Conference standings and without the major and immediate injury troubles that would work long-term as an excuse. Monday night they got flattened by the Miami Heat, in a game where Kawhi Leonard suited up and scored 36 points. The team looked completely bewildered; no lineup combinations appeared to have any cohesion; James Harden, their lone dependable producer, was minus-39 in 20 minutes. Change is required. When everything is this busted, the work of fixing it can start just about anywhere.
