Don’t Tell Me About Chris Paul

By:
Published: December 20, 2011

True Story– One time I cared about Chris Paul. Now I don’t. It’s nothing personal, since I find him to be a great basketball player and a great person, but he’s no longer a Hornet. Not sure if you knew this about me, but I’m a Hornets fan. I know about Chris Paul.

Everyone else is the enemy. I used to hassle fans who wore jerseys of the opposition to our New Orleans arena, yelling at them as our 07-08 Hornets crushed their souls. I’ve dressed up in costume repeatedly, been a part of Thornton’s Thunder, taken second place in the dance cam at least three times, hosted and organized multiple watch parties, had an “I’m In” event at my house, and now I’ve even taken the step of deciding to cover the team as a pretty much full time writer/blogger.

What may strike you as odd (maybe not, since all of those things are 100% Hornets) is that I barely care about the rest of the NBA. I only follow other teams because it’s essential to covering the Bees properly. Truly, if there wasn’t a team in New Orleans, I’d be a casual NBA fan. That’s what my interest level in the NBA was before I became a die-hard Hornet fan. That’s what it would be if they had never come.

So stop telling me about Chris Paul, New Orleans writers.

I don’t care how he’s doing on the Clippers. I don’t care if he’s getting quadruple doubles nightly*. Not my concern unless he’s playing us. Get it? It’s just annoying at this point, and it’s only going to get much, much worse as casual observers of the game get their first extended look at him.

We don’t have to be part of it. He’s not a Hornets player. He’s not from New Orleans. He desperately wanted to get out of here. The national media is going to have me reaching for  barf bag by the first week of January at this pace. We don’t need to be reminded that he didn’t want us. We especially don’t need to be reminded that he’s really, really good. We’re all well aware.

(edit- I was told it may not be clear that I’m being a bit silly. So here, ENTERING HOMER MODE)

In a few years, when the Hornets are better than the Clippers and Paul’s head is spinning wondering if somehow he was the problem here, we can talk about Chris Paul. We can talk about how insane it was (and is) that he wanted to go to the Clippers to win. We can talk about how, at the age of 30 or whatever, he’s more desperate than ever to win a title.

Perhaps best of all, though, is that we will be talking about how ironic it is that his best chance to make max money and win a title was actually with the Hornets, but he just couldn’t see past the bright lights of a big city, or the not so ideal past of the New Orleans franchise.

Until then, let’s just let the Clippers writers talk about the Clippers players. We have better things to discuss.

 

*Highlight reels excluded

19 Comments

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.