National Basketball Association

LA Clippers: Time Is Running Out For Chris Paul's Championship Dreams

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Entering his 12th season in the NBA, time is running out for Chris Paul to win the championship he deserves with the LA Clippers.

Somewhat lost in the midst of Stephen Curry‘s emergence as the league’s most feared point guard in the past few seasons, has been the manner in which Chris Paul has managed to play better than ever in a time when he should truly be starting to look past his prime.

The 2015-16 season marked Paul’s 11th year in the NBA, but at 31 years old, the North Carolina native is arguably more productive than ever.

Last season saw CP3 average a career high in scoring per 36 minutes at 21.5 points, while his mark of 11.0 assists per 36 falls just 0.1 below a career mark in terms of distribution too.

That sort of bump in per 36 isn’t unheard of as players get older, as often it coincides with a minutes drop-off a reduced number of games. That hasn’t been the case for Paul though.

CP3 has played 156 regular season games over the past two seasons and a total of 5,277 minutes overall. That places Paul 10th in minutes for that period, ahead of the likes of LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Jimmy Butler.

Having always been one of the smartest players in the league, there’s a real case to be made for Paul being better than ever at the age of 31, considering the extra wealth of knowledge and experience he has picked up along the way.

At the same age as his good friend, LeBron James, Paul could be forgiven for viewing this as a period in his career where he should be pressing on to add additional, legacy sealing titles to his trophy case.

Instead, Paul remains searching for his first, having never really come within touching distance of the ultimate success to begin with.

Heading into a new season, his 12th in the NBA, it’s hard to decide whether the LA Clippers can bring CP3 any closer to realizing his dreams either.

It’s doing the Clippers a massive disservice not to mention how many of their recent runs at contention have been derailed by injuries or unfortunate incident, and for the team’s players and fans, a sense of optimism has to prevail in saying this is going to be the year where that could change.

In reality, there’s no real reason to believe that though. The Oklahoma City Thunder spent years plagued by injuries at the wrong time of the season, waiting for the good break that was inevitably going to come their way.

Now that Kevin Durant resides in Oakland, they’ll have to come to terms with the fact that the NBA doesn’t always give you what your consistent play deserves.

For Paul’s Clippers, the additions of Marreese Speights, Brandon Bass and Raymond Felton don’t do much to move the needle when Blake Griffin has only played more than 70 games in half the seasons he’s played in the league (and that’s only if we’re kind enough to exclude the fact he missed an entire season upon being drafted).

Jamal Crawford has been one hell of a scorer for a long time, but he’s now 36.

He can’t be expected to maintain those same levels of consistency, yet in extending him through to the age of 39 with a $42 million extension this summer that seems to be exactly what the Clippers are betting on.

Even if the loss of Tim Duncan sets the Spurs back, the West is a tougher out than ever with Durant’s decision to join the historic Golden State Warriors.

These realities will pain nobody more than the ultra-competitive Clippers point guard, but the fact is that in spite of the best run in franchise history, Chris Paul’s team are stuck in a purgatory of sorts.

Of course, luck could finally swing their way, but by now the Clippers should know not to rely on that. A team who are almost good enough to win and not bad enough to be broken up is often the worst place to be, and that’s where Paul finds himself.

With a player option for next season, Paul will soon control his own destiny, but as much as he’s rallied against the hands of time up until this point, he won’t manage to do so forever.

The Clippers are about to enter a pivotal season for their current core group, and for Chris Paul, there’s nothing he can really do other than to play it out as well as he always has. Unfortunately, it’s no longer bold to say that his team will probably come up short once again.