Gbeeon1 Gb

Chris Paul is, at worst, the third best point guard in history. He’s one of the 15 most talented *players* the sport has ever seen, full stop. There is nobody smarter or more prepared every night, that’s for sure. No player has ever had that much impact, or that much longevity, at his size. It’s unheard of. The metrics back up his place in history, too. The same metrics people use for all-time greats … those have to apply to CP3. On a personal level, I would argue nobody has had a stronger influence on my basketball knowledge than Chris, and the way I view the game today. Just watching him operate and listening to him after games taught me so much, even though I only *covered* his teams for brief stints. He should’ve been an MVP in 2008, and I’m just glad he made those two deep playoff runs in 2018 and 2021. Wish he would’ve captured one of them, but sometimes, those are just the breaks. If this is it for him … what a tremendous career. He needs his jersey retired in multiple arenas.

This Cam Thomas thing reminds me of when the Nets let Yogi Ferrell walk for Spencer Dinwiddie. Early returns on that were bad. But let’s see how it plays out.

Alijah Arenas is a pro

Zu opened up a lot about his Lakers tenure (translated from Croatian so not 100% accurate): -Worked out a couple times with Kareem. Kareem wanted a full time position with the Lakers to work with him (and other bigs) but management never agreed. -Magic told Zu he’d be disappointed in him if he wasn’t summer league MVP on a team with Ingram/Lonzo/Kuzma/Hart -Magic said they’d decline his third year option after promising his agent they’d pick it up. Agent was mad and let Lakers know. They later told Zu they’re picking it up in the middle of the night after he had a good game for Croatia -in 2017 Zu spent the entire offseason working on his game in LA and not playing for Croatia, before training camp even started Magic told him he didn’t improve and again won’t play. They signed a washed Bogut instead. -Lakers wanted Michael Beasley backup 5 mins over Zu, they also later signed a washed Tyson Chandler to play over him. -Zu got called a day before a game vs NOP and told he’d be a starter against AD after JaVale got pneumonia. It was Zu’s first real nba game in 2 years. Magic said he wanted 15/10/3 from him. Zu had 17/11/3. -all the Lakers young guys thought they’d be traded for AD mid season