One Team We Think Where Chris Paul Would Be an Obvious Fit

Chris Mannix and Evan Turner discuss whether the veteran point guard will finish the season with another team after his messy exit from the Clippers.

Chris Paul watches during the NBA Cup semifinals game between the Spurs and Thunder in Las Vegas. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Editor’s note: This first appeared in the Open Floor newsletter, a free, twice-weekly publication straight to your inbox. Subscribe now.

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Hello from Los Angeles, where the state of the Clippers is … not good. The Clips were, predictably, boat raced by Oklahoma City on Thursday in their first game since the NBA Cup mini-break. L.A. dropped to 6–21 on the season after committing an astonishing 29 turnovers. Cough it up half that often and Oklahoma City will beat you. Turn it over 29 times and you get blown out. 

Podcast Alert: Evan Turner is back and in studio to run through some of the post-Cup storylines. We get into San Antonio’s recent surge—and if the Spurs are ready to compete for more than midseason hardware—the Clippers’ downfall and the risk in trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Plus we swapped takes on Chris Paul’s end in Los Angeles, details of which were revealed this week in an ESPN story. 

We’ll begin there with a sample of my conversation with Turner on CP’s exit and what’s next for the future Hall of Fame point guard.  

Chris Mannix: So what was your take on how the Chris Paul situation played out? 

Evan Turner: We love everybody for their quirkiness or whatever, as long as they’re great. When you sit there and it’s like, “Chris Paul being an a------,” he’s always been a captain of the ship. He’s always had tough conversations. Even in the union, he’s always been the one being like, “Hey, this is how we build it.” So when we sit there, I can comprehend how players in a veteran locker room might be like, “Hey, I’m not trying to hear that s---.” And I understand that in the NBA locker room, a lot of times it’s like the mob. If you can’t sell it, they’re going to kill you. 

I think CP3 is allowed to hold men accountable. I think CP3 should write a book on how to win and build culture. He’s done it time and time again. It’s just like, hey, the same thing that makes you laugh, makes you cry and nobody’s above us. I was never the biggest Chris Paul fan, but even when I sit there I’m just like, oh no, he’s right. You can say he’s an a------. But he’s right. When you sit there, if he said it, I could say he is wrong. I will bet my last dollar he is right. You wouldn’t know why because he probably looked it up 150 million times and thought about it. The only other basketball mind I can think of that is like that is Rajon Rondo. 

CM: Adam Silver said this week he’d like to see Chris finish the season with another team. Finish his career the right way. I’d love to see Oklahoma City sign him, not just because they represent the best chance for Chris to win a championship. But all the stuff he does, but all the stuff that dragged the Clippers down, or at least was perceived to drag the Clippers down, that wouldn’t be a thing in OKC. He already has the unflinching support of the star. Like Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] swears by Chris Paul. Learned a lot from Chris Paul that one year. He was huge in the development of Shai that year. So you’re not putting Chris into a situation that he’s unfamiliar with. It’d be such a great story to bring Chris back after he helped them kind of transition in 2020.

ET: I think for the future as well. Can you imagine Chris being around all those young guys? Like a guy like Ajay Mitchell. If Chris would just be like, “Hey, you know what? Y’all want me to work with him?” It is just a cheat code. You got one of the ultimate winners, one of the ultimate leaders of this generation. 

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