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As the clock struck zero on the Phoenix Suns’ 62nd win of the season Wednesday night, it was impossible not to think about how far this franchise has come. Their 60th win had already secured their place in league history as the third-fastest turnaround from the NBA’s worst to its best, and their 61st win ensured they were just the second team to ever improve by 10+ wins in three straight seasons.
With five games to go, and this Suns team all but assured of a new franchise wins record, that reflection on how far this organization has come traces back to plenty of key figures — coach Monty Williams, general manager James Jones, Devin Booker, the list goes on and on. But as much as Book is this team’s MVP, what Chris Paul is still doing in his 17th season in the league should not be lost on anyone.
“It’s changed the trajectory of my career,” Booker said of Paul’s presence. “Always being a fan first, and then getting the behind-the-scenes, everybody gets to see what he’s been doing on the court for the past 20 years, but nobody gets to see the behind-the-scenes of it. I’m privileged to be able to see it every day and just be a sponge to it, learn, pick up things — not even through conversation, just watching. It’s been the biggest help, not just for me, but for everybody on this team.”
On Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors, Paul’s final stat line of 15 points and 8 assists on 6-of-9 shooting hardly leapt off the page. But on a rare night where Booker (5-for-21) couldn’t get shots to fall, and where Deandre Ayton lacked his usual touch (7-for-17), it was Paul who made the decisive plays down the stretch.
Mikal Bridges paced Phoenix all night, but without Paul’s 8 fourth-quarter points — including 6 in the final two minutes to close it out — this team would’ve suffered a rare crunch-time loss. The thing is, he’s been doing it ever since he came back three games ago, picking up right where he left off like there never was any avulsion fracture that kept him sidelined for five weeks.
In an impressive road win over the Denver Nuggets on the second night of a back-to-back, Booker’s MVP statement game stole the show, but Paul fed his teammates late and helped complete the comeback with 17 points and 13 assists.
In another convincing win against the Philadelphia 76ers, he racked up 19 points and 14 assists, with 6 points and 4 dimes coming in the fourth quarter. And against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, in a win that tied the franchise record, CP3 added to his resumé as one of the game’s elite closers once again.
“We just stayed together throughout the whole thing, and we got CP and Book,” Bridges said. “That’s how I always feel when it’s one of them times where they’re gonna take us home, and we’re gonna go out there and get stops, fight all the way to the end.”
Not only is the Point God averaging 17.0 points and 11.7 assists per game since returning from a five-week absence, but he’s shooting 21-for-34 from the floor (61.8%), has 35 assists to just 7 turnovers and is a +22 in his 99 minutes.
With 20 of his 51 points and 9 of his 35 assists coming in the fourth quarter, it’s clear Paul hasn’t lost a step in the clutch. Despite all that missed time, he’s still first in the league in total plus/minus in crunch-time (+107), has dished out the second-most dimes (32) and is shooting 58.1% in the clutch, per NBA.com.
Monty Williams understands his point guard has experienced hundreds of late-game situations over the course of his 17-year career, but the fact that he’s still one of Phoenix’s go-to closers at age 36 should not be lost on anyone.
“I just know when he’s on the floor and he has the ball in his hands, it takes a lot of pressure off of all of us,” Williams said. “When the great quarterback is in a two-minute drill, certain teams just relax in those moments because of the greatness of the guy who has the ball. That’s how I feel, and he and I have done it together so many times now, there’s a huge connection. But there’s a sense of relief for me when he has the ball.”
What Paul is doing this late in his career is staggering. Not only is he leading the NBA in assists at 10.7 per game, but heading into the Warriors game, he ranked eighth in win shares, 11th in win shares per 48 minutes, 10th in Box Plus/Minus and 14th in Value Over Replacement Player…again, all after missing 15 games.
It’s not just natural ability or experience that deserves credit here though, but rather, the relentless work ethic Paul displays at all times, even when trying to return from his latest injury.
“He still has to develop the capacity and his conditioning to get to where we want him to get, where he wants to get, but he’s been Chris,” Williams said. “He was diligent in his rehab, and I watched him every day. We were in the gym together just doing stuff that no one will ever know about, but he was working his tail off so that he could get back to playing that way and wouldn’t have this huge gap in between being out and where he needs to be. I think he shortened that gap with how he worked while he was out.”
Playing on the No. 1 team in the NBA and coming off a Finals appearance, Paul obviously has the motivation of playing for the one thing his Hall-of-Fame resume still lacks: a championship. But that notorious work ethic has seeped deep into the roots of this organization, showing itself in the little things.
For example, after Wednesday’s game, during which three of the five starters played at least 35 minutes, the Suns got a workout in. It’s something they’ve been doing behind the scenes all season long.
“That’s who we are,” Williams said. “We are a work team, and even though the studies show that lifting after a game helps with the recovery, I think they really enjoy being around each other. They enjoy the work, they’ve seen the fruits of their labor. And that’s who we’ve been from day one. I mean, you can’t win 62 games by falling into it, you have to go take it and apprehend it, and this is the guys chasing something and apprehending it in a way that is contagious, but it’s also our DNA.”
That DNA comes from more than just one person, and Booker and the younger core pieces deserve credit for adopting that work ethic as their own. Williams and Paul would say they had nothing to do with it, but having an example like Paul to look up to certainly helped these youngsters last year, back when the 8-0 bubble run was the only real taste of NBA success they’d ever known.
Williams believes that relentless work ethic is a big part of why Paul is still so effective at this stage of his career.
“I don’t think he gets enough credit for that,” he said. “I think people just think Chris loves the game and he plays. I see him working every single day. I see the changes he’s made with his diet, and I’ve seen the sacrifices that he’s made away from his family. So I’m happy for him when he’s having success like this.”
This isn’t the first time Chris Paul has enjoyed success to this level. After all, his 2017-18 Houston Rockets won 65 games and were one CP3 injury away from possibly unseating one of the greatest teams ever in the Western Conference Finals. But as much as Paul’s impact on the Suns is clear, so too is their impact on him, especially when it comes to their “celebrate everything” approach.
“Obviously I’d like to get a championship to go along with that [62 wins], but that doesn’t diminish anything that we’ve done,” Paul said. “Seasons are hard. It’s a long season, ups and downs of a season, so it’s dope to be a part of that with this franchise and have an opportunity to have the most wins this franchise ever had.”
For as often as CP3 has come under scrutiny for his “harsh” leadership style or the way former teammates bristled at his sometimes prickly demeanor, Phoenix’s young core has proven just how far a Chris Paul team can go if the teammates in question are sponges to it. And with a young group that’s been so receptive, matched his competitive fire and exceeded his expectations with their own work ethic, the more grating aspects of Paul’s authority feel like a thing of the past.
In short, Chris Paul is having as much fun as he’s had at any stage of his NBA career, and this team is similarly bringing out the best in him.
“The thing that I value more than anything with Chris is when somebody else makes a play, he looks at me with the same joy as if he made the play,” Williams said. “I think that’s been the difference that I’ve seen since I’ve been a head coach and having him: He just cares about winning, and he wants other people to do well. At the same time, he wants to do well himself, but he’s happy in both situations.”
Williams deserves a ton of credit — Coach of the Year kind of credit — for fostering such a culture in the midst of a winning, competitive environment, but the players’ camaraderie off the hardwood ties in with their success on it. Paul has been close with dozens of teammates over the years, but the friendships he’s built on this Suns team are something special.
“It’s bigger than basketball with us,” Booker explained. “We know we got lifetime-long friendships and relationships, and that’s important. I think Chris can tell you better than me, but you don’t find that in this league very often. So I think that is a direct translation to our performance on the court.”
“You play in this league for a long time, some people are just your teammates,” Paul added. “You know what I mean? You’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I played with that dude.’ But regardless what happens, you would have seen the way we were with Jevon Carter. You would have seen the way we were when T-Craig got traded back to us. We always on FaceTime right away.”
Playing against “elite teams” like the Warriors, Paul said those late-game scenarios are more like chess than checkers. And in those situations, having that trust factor and being able to communicate and hold your brothers accountable can make all the difference.
“It’s that confidence of knowing when we come to the huddle, everybody know they got a job to do, everybody gives their input,” Paul said. “We don’t really get rattled like that. We lose at times, and we understand, we try to learn from it, but we also try to learn from our wins. We say it all the time, man, it’s just a fun team to be around.”
As impressive as his on-court endeavors have been, that doesn’t sound like the Chris Paul of old. And he deserves just as much credit for that helping hand in the Suns’ success as anything else.
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