Chris Paul has received a lot of criticism recently following his collapse in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Dallas Mavericks. Luka Doncic and co. dominated the Suns at home, ending their season with a horrible defeat, with Paul getting all the bad comments.
Patrick Beverley has had a field day going after the point guard, while some fans also criticized him. Well, some people have had enough of that and made sure to respond to the haters and those who tried to bring the player down.
Charles Barkley recently joined the Ryen Russillo Podcast to discuss a variety of topics, including the CP3 slander. Chuck explained that expecting a guy at Paul’s age to lead a team to a championship was too much, even explaining that younger players took over from veterans when they started winning.
Moreover, he reminded people that Paul was a menace to the best team in the league in prior years, so he shouldn’t be criticized for not winning now (34:48):
“To ask a 38-year-old guy to carry you at this point of his career… Think about it, Magic took over of Kareem, Tony Parker, Ginobili took over of Tim Duncan, Kawhi Leonard also. As a guy gets older, it’s unfair for us to ask him to still be the same guy he was 5, 10 years ago. Listen, playing point guard at Chris’ size, he’s the best leader I’ve seen in the NBA. Think about this, he’s won every single place he’s been and if you can’t appreciate that you really don’t know anything about basketball as a fan. I mean, winning follows Chris around. When Golden State was pretty much unbeatable, who’s the only team that had them down 3-2 until Chris blew out his hamstring? His resume is impeccable.”
CP3 has stated that we haven’t seen the best of him yet. The Suns still have a solid core to compete for the championship, but it’ll be up to Devin Booker to lift his level and take this team to the promised land. We can’t say he hasn’t tried, but luck hasn’t smiled on Paul during his career. He still has hopes to win, but it seems likely that he’ll join Barkley as one of the best players to never win a ring.
