Chris Paul being sent home was an absolute bush league move by the Los Angeles Clippers, according to Stephen A. Smith.
The ESPN host blasted the Clippers for their management of a future Hall of Famer, abruptly sent home in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, weeks after announcing this season would be his last in the NBA.
“How the hell do you do this to Chris Paul?” Smith said on “First Take” later that day. “Now, this is a future Hall of Famer who came there for the last year in his career. I don’t give a damn what’s going on with the team. They’re trash right now. We understand that.”
Paul, a Clippers legend having played many of his prime years with the team from 2011-2017, was reportedly refused a meeting with coach Tyronn Lue and said, “it just didn’t work out.”
Los Angeles is arguably the most tortured franchise in the NBA, with Paul leading the “Lob City” Clippers team to the Western Conference semifinals in 2015, where they blew a 3-1 series lead to the Houston Rockets.
History repeated in the 2020 COVID “bubble,” when Kawhi Leonard led the team into the playoffs, where they completely melted down against a budding Denver Nuggets squad.
Leonard, according to Smith, is a bigger problem than Paul could be to the organization.
“They have the worst superstar in the sport, Kawhi Leonard, who is a talent when healthy, no doubt, but does nothing to promote his team, nor the game of basketball,” Smith said. “The absolute worst superstar that you could possibly have. And from what I’ve been told, the only person who really talks to him in CP3 is because nobody else talks to him. Okay, just leave him alone. That organization right now is a mess. It’s a mess.”
Los Angeles won its first game in the post-Paul era, a 115-92 victory over the Hawks, to improve to 6-16, a mark that leaves them 13th in the West entering Friday’s slate.
The franchise remains in disarray, and it’s not likely to improve any time soon. Tanking isn’t even on the table for the Clippers, thanks to the 2019 trade that brought Paul George into the fold for a war chest of draft picks, including their 2026 first-round pick getting sent to the powerhouse Thunder.
It is unclear if Paul will play for another team this season, averaging just 2.9 points, 3.3 assists, and 1.8 rebounds in 14.3 minutes per game.
He’s been linked to the Knicks, with Leon Rose, the Knicks’ president of basketball operations, having represented Paul for years when he was an agent. The Post’s Stefan Bondy reporting last week that the Knicks internally “broached” the idea of trying to acquire the point guard in a trade.
