Thunder star Chris Paul accelerated the team’s rebuild this season by exceeding expectations on and off the court, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports writes.
Paul, 35, embraced his role as a leader upon being traded from the Rockets last summer, taking young players such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander under his wing and holding each of his teammates accountable to the fullest extent — much like Jimmy Butler has done with the Heat in the Eastern Conference.
“When I’m in, I’m in,” Paul said. “Y’all thought I was going to ask out or something. No, I liked the direction of the organization and I believe I can play a part in elevating this team. When I step on the court, I feel like I can compete with anybody and I wanted them to feel that way too.”
The Thunder finished with a 44-28 regular-season record, taking the Rockets to seven games before losing 104-102 in the final contest. Paul finished with a triple-double, recording 19 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists.
“We didn’t give a damn about anybody’s prediction going into any series. In any game, we expected to win,” Paul said after Game 7, as relayed by Haynes. “That’s how we played all season long, every game. We fought hard all year.”
Paul remains under contract for next season, with a $44.2MM player option in 2021/22, after playing a key role in the Thunder’s success this year. The team has multiple rotation players set to reach free agency, however, including starting forward Danilo Gallinari.
There’s more from the Northwest Division tonight:
- The Jazz‘s painful first-round defeat to the Nuggets won’t shake the team’s core confidence, Tony Jones of The Athletic details. Utah lost a hard-fought seven-game series to Denver, coming up short without one of their best scorers in Bojan Bogdanovic (20.2 PPG; season-ending wrist surgery). “We went from being an ‘unsalvageable’ team three months ago to this, and I don’t think anybody outside of us expected that,” Donovan Mitchell said. “I’m happy with the way we played, obviously not the result. Look man, like, we’ve got things that we know we can fix and like I said, we felt like we kind of gave (away) situations when we had control of the series and we let it get out of hand. … With Bojan coming back, not putting everything on Bojan, but with him coming back it’s another weapon. This won’t happen again.”
- Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman ponders whether Billy Donovan wants to stick around as head coach of the Thunder for the future. Donovan’s contract with the franchise is set to expire, with the veteran coach coming off a successful season with the team this season. Thunder general manager Sam Presti has previously made it clear that he hopes to have Donovan return, though that decision will ultimately be his to make.
- Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam purchasing the Timberwolves would be redundant, Zach Harper of The Athletic opines. A recent report from Sportico indicated that Haslam was considering an offer for the Wolves, a team that’s attracted multiple interested bidders to date.
Billy finally had his first season with a team that would listen to him and he could actually COACH and you actually saw results on the court. Another piece needs to be added if they’re gonna compete with the top teams, but the thunder are a good team currently and has about 37 draft picks over the next decade to only get better.
The team is in a great spot, Billy would be crazy to leave. He just had to wait for Russ to leave to see how good of a coach he can be.
They won’t win a thing with Chris Paul. The only time he reached the WCF was thanks to Houston and Harden. He paid them back by getting hurt, as usual, and costing them the championship in 2018.
At least you aren’t bitter.
27 straight missed threes…blew a 3-2 lead…all that because you missed one guy, saying that just so you know I love reading all your comments
Maybe….maybe not….but you’re not gonna win with Russ either so aren’t we both content?
Someone please explain how Chris Paul has accelerated the team rebuild now? That’s completely backwards, he done done the exact opposite.
Instead of re-building they are trying to compete in the ultra-competitive Western conference. He is nearing the end of his career, so it’s safe to assume he will either suffer another hamstring injury next season with so little time off and/or his production will drop off significantly while his team misses the playoffs in 2021.
* has done
My only guess on how he has accelerated things are that 1. he has rebuilt some of his trade value making it more likely than before someone might trade for him and 2. he has helped by being a mentor to younger guys like SGA who are the future.
Paul contact is perfect for any team with a lot of teenagers and undrafted players
OKC is top 4 team in the west
Paul is a teacher and perform like father of Teenagers
Paul is far superior to westbrook as westbroke has almost no value to any team. Pads empty stats and is the main reason why rockets aren’t winning this year.
Paul actually makes a difference on the court whether or not you want to believe it he just can’t play with a ball hog like harden. Not sure how many player need to go “team up” with harden to realize he is massively overrated. Dwight, Paul, westbroke, capella. This list goes on and it’s always harden supporting casts fault. Half of his 35 ppg are off free throws once playoffs roll so round refs stop calling ticky tack fouls and harden can’t do much outside of layups and flopping.
Okc will get a nice return of assets for paul and further build a formidable young roster going forward.
LOL they were supposed to be in the cellar of the west and took the Rockets to 7. When they made that trade no one on earth thought that would happen.
On the Haslam article, I know that it is easy to look at him as the Browns owner and point and laugh that and say he would suck as owner, but I disagree. I don’t think Haslam was a good owner his first several years owning the Browns, but right now there is more optimism about the Browns turning the corner than I have seen in almost 20 years.
What does it mean that Haslam purchasing the team would be “redundant” hahaha like what does that even mean? How can purchasing a sports franchise be redundant? That really doesn’t even make sense…
That word sticks out to me too, yet it was used in the headline of the The Athletic article. Redundancy means unnecessary duplication. (Using the word “the” twice in a row in the first sentence is repetitive, but not really redundant, because “The” is in the site’s title.)
I don’t see how the word applies in this case, unless the word was repurposed by the legal industry to apply to similar situations, and now the word is just attached to any multiple ownership by one party. Maybe it’s just a sly insult by the reporter, since the whole article is designed to insult via humor. I did the same sort of thing in HR upon reading the news!— though without bending word meanings.
Wow Chris Paul is going to make $44M in 21/22 as a 37 year old who clearly has already lost a step (though in fairness he did play better this season than in the couple prior) but still WOW that’s a rough contract for the team!!
Rockets gave him that contract. Like he’s going to say no. They should of only offered 3 yrs. They gave him five. Not very smart. It’s insane to offer max contracts. Unless you are going to Finals a couple yrs. Youbfet capped out. You can’t do anything. It’s crazy to give one player like 33% of your cap space. Should be no more than 25%. And be able to give them up front bonus. You sign wrong guy. Injury prone or a knucklehead and you are screwed for 4-5 yrs. This is problem Sixers have now. No cap room and two players whose contracts you can’t move. Thunder have plenty of picks to rebuild team. Draft n trades. Chris might accept buyout in last yr. Sixers should use Horford to get Chris. At least they can challenge for title next two yrs. That’s only place where he would be worth taking a shot.
Says a fan of the most pathetic franchise in sports the New York Knicks
That’s a great analysis misfit. Now go retrieve the ball.
OKC should sign and trade Danilo Gallinari for Derick Jones Jr and swap first round picks.
OKC get the 20th pick and Heat get the 25th pick.
OKC would be getting a young, athletic wing for its rebuild and get a slightly better pick. Miami would be getting a nice PF who they have targeted in the past who would make them an even better team.
Then trade the 20th pick and Terrance Ferguson for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and 1 of the Pelicans 3 second young picks.
As far as young defensive SGs that can’t shoot go OKC have Ferguson Roberson and Dort and come the playoffs Dort was looking the best and financially he’s the cheapest so keep him. But let’s trade Ferguson. NAW was huge in preseason as a playmaker and shooter, he’s also the cousin of SGA and together they could begin making the new OKC team.
So end of the day OKC is getting DJJ for Gallinari who was going to leave anyway. Then they move back about 15 places in the draft in order to swap Terrance Ferguson for NAW. OKC get younger and more exciting building for the future