Many NBA "insiders" considered it a lock that Chris Paul would re-sign with the Los Angeles Clippers. The team was building a championship roster and he was the center piece. With them, a trip to the playoffs was a guarantee. However, reports are now surfacing that Paul and the Clippers might not have been a sure thing all along. Many teams were wooing Paul to sign with them and he reportedly threatened to leave a few times.
Bill Simmons of ESPN is claiming that Paul threatened to sign with the Houston Rockets and join Dwight Howard if the Clippers did not do everything they could to hire former Boston head coach Doc Rivers to replace Vinny Del Negro.
"To Chris Paul, who basically told the Clippers that after they squashed the first incarnation of their Doc Rivers trade. Chris didn't like that. He let them know he was heading to Houston to team up with Dwight. And he wasn't kidding. For about 36 hours, Morey probably felt like all 11 guys in Ocean's Eleven. You know what happened next: The Clippers blinked, the Doc trade got revived and finished, and the Clippers were offering Chris 107 million reasons to play for him. Crisis averted. The lesson, as always: Chris Paul runs the Clippers," Simmons wrote in an NBA offseason review.
This is not the first time that Paul has been at odds with the Clippers' front office, so Simmons' story is not that hard to believe. Reports have surfaced in the past claiming Paul played a large part in the firing of Del Negro after being unhappy with his coaching methods. Of course the Clippers quickly shot down those rumors, but they are there. It did not help that owner Donald Sterling did not exactly deny the claims.
Sterling did an interview with the Los Angeles Times where he was asked if Paul was a factor in the releasing of Del Negro. All Sterling would say was that the organization aims to keep players happy. The Clippers knew they had to do everything to re-sign Paul, so the firing of the coach and the hiring of Rivers was the best option.
True or not, everything has worked out in the Clippers' favor. They got one of the best NBA coaches in Rivers. Paul re-signed a nice five-year, $107 million contract. They acquired key players like J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley and will surely be a contender come playoff time.
