National Basketball Association

Chris Paul and the Clippers playoff woes

Published Jun. 6, 2015 10:39 a.m. ET

foxsports

By Brent Sindoni

Chris Paul, among other top tier NBA players such as Carmelo Anthony, have been the butt of numerous twitter jokes and online memes for their inability to lead their team past the second round of the playoffs. While the Clippers took a commanding 3-1 lead in the Conference Semi-finals over the Houston Rockets this playoffs, the second place team in the Western Conference, Houston Rockets, embraced the challenge and won three straight games against Los Angeles. This feat had not been accomplished since 2006 when the Phoenix Suns stormed back from being down 3-1 in a series against the Los Angeles Lakers.

While much credit must be given to the Rockets for their ability to come back from such a huge deficit, the Clippers expectations were through the roof for this NBA season. The team currently constructed was laden with star players including Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Deandre Jordan, a head coach widely considered as one of the top five coaches in the league in Doc Rivers, and a new billionaire owner in Steve Ballmer while in the one of the two biggest markets in the United States. It goes without saying that they have grossly underachieved in terms of the playoffs.

On a positive note, the Clippers earned the third seed in the Western Conference and took down the reigning World Champion San Antonio Spurs in seven games thanks to the game winning shot hit by Chris Paul at the end of regulation. In a chess match against head coach Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers prevailed in the first round series leaving many Clippers fans deeming this series win as the turning point of the franchise’s woes.

The Clippers, a franchise that had failed to win 50 games in a season until 2012-13, has produced three consecutive 50-plus seasons since. Lob City is an automatic highlight real on SportsCenter because of the high-flying dunks they produce. Although they advanced to the Conference-Semi Finals for the second consecutive year, the Clippers have yet to take the next step.

While Paul is not the only person to blame for the Clippers recent lack playoff success, a basketball player’s stardom is determined by how well they can play in 7-game series, and how far they can advance their team in the playoffs. Paul’s time with both the Hornets and Clippers, he has been unsuccessful in leading his team past the second round of the playoffs.

Some question whether Paul superstar. While Paul’s regular season numbers are top five in the league, his playoff record, 28-37, speaks for itself.

While it is not entirely Chris Paul’s fault for his playoff woes in the past due to the lack of talent surrounding him in New Orleans, in Los Angeles the Clippers produced the most efficient offense in the league this year. In a league where one player can make a tremendous impact on a game, Paul needs to do something that he has never done before in his career, and lead his Clippers to the promised land and win the chip. Without doing so, the ringless jokes will continue to haunt CP3.

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