There’s an old NBA tale that coaches and even teammates liked to tell Michael Jordan before playoff games that players from the opposing team had disrespectfully questioned his mastery. Jordan, hardly needing the inspiration, would inevitably take it personally and try to right the imagined wrong by going for 50 points or dunking after touching the roof or some such.
NBA veteran and Houston Rockets point guard Chris Paul, 33, knows all those Jordan stories and everything else about NBA motivation. That’s why he shook his head when his young talented teammate Clint Capela announced he “wanted the Warriors” next in the playoffs.
“Ah man,” Paul said in reaction, “you’re gonna be all over the Bleacher Report, man.” Paul knows the media is itching to take a statement like that and blow it up into a giant personal challenge, an affront to the Warriors. And the NBA loves it too, coverage that amps the drama of a series that will already provide plenty of drama on its own. (That is, if the series happens — the Warrior have yet to dispatch the eager LA Clippers who trail Golden State 3 games to 2.)
Paul continued: “It’s cool thought, it is what it is.” Then Paul shook his head and said something about how Twitter, too, would eat up the 24-year-old Capela’s comment. Paul knows Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and Draymond Green don’t need any extra motivation in the playoffs, just as Michael Jordan didn’t.
And Paul himself wasn’t giving the Warriors anything extra to chew on — he already knows the tall task at hand. In fact, it’s a safe bet that Paul, trying to win his first NBA championship, hopes he gets to play the LA Clippers, his former team, instead of the 2x defending champions.
Capela wants the warriors pic.twitter.com/HNWguZjU4O
— The Render (@TheRenderNBA) April 25, 2019
