Chris Paul and Some of the New Orleans Hornets Media

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Published: December 1, 2011

This afternoon at the first day the Alario Center opened for player workouts, Chris Paul stood in front of a group of 20- some odd members of the media and took some time to answer questions. As everyone gathered around Paul, the guy on the front of half the NBA sections on the planet, it got real. The season was back on, and in front of us stood one of the greatest basketball players of our generation. So began the most ridiculous few minutes of my short sports writing career.

Everything went down the crapper right away.  A number of professional reporters (obviously not all of them) contributed to ask a series of questions which made me wonder if they had heard of Twitter or even the internet in general. Or if they even were aware that Chris Paul’s contract likely ends after this year.

Paul predictably said the same old tired lines he’s used before, but for the first time we (Hornets writers) should have known without doubt that he was talking nonsense. He’s not the happiest guy in the world or he wouldn’t be demanding a trade. He CAN control the “rumors” that persist about him, and he’s very well aware of why they continue to come up– his agent. Yet nobody called him on any of it. Not only that, but many just bought his nonsense hook, line, and sinker, and moved on from the first 30 seconds of the interview as if him being a Hornet was set in stone.

Insanity. Surely at least one job of a sports reporter is to uncover the truth.

Seriously, what world are we living in where two professional reporters ask Chris Paul if he’s going to recruit players for the Hornets this year? In what world does a reporter ask Chris Paul, the guy on the front page of NYC newspapers in a Knicks uniform, the following question–

“You’ve got Memphis up first in the preseason, how does that match up sit with you?”

They should have been laughed out of the media circle.

This will be the last time I stand in the back and let the tough questions go unasked while other reporters question Paul about his favorite place to eat pie in Narnia. I’m sure I’ll step on someones since apparently some players aren’t used to actually being forced to deal with the reality of their lives, but at least I’ll be getting something other than quotes about how D-West is CP3’s “brother”.

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