The Warriors hated Chris Paul for a decade ... then he joined them
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00:00 You know what doesn't happen that often?
00:02 A professional athlete joins a new team
00:05 and their new teammates say,
00:07 "This is kinda weird 'cause we hate that guy."
00:10 But that is exactly what happened
00:12 when Chris Paul got traded
00:14 to the Golden State Warriors in 2023.
00:17 So let's remember what that hatred was
00:20 and where it came from.
00:21 This episode of "Beef History" is presented by FX's "Clipped,"
00:26 the scandalous story of LA's other basketball team,
00:29 now streaming only on Hulu.
00:31 First, there was friendship.
00:34 In the late 2000s,
00:35 when Stephen Curry had his sights set on the NBA,
00:38 there was a very obvious role model.
00:41 Over the preceding decade,
00:43 Chris Paul had gone from North Carolina high school standout
00:47 to in-state college star
00:49 to NBA superstar with the New Orleans Hornets.
00:53 Many would call him the best point guard in the NBA.
00:57 Curry followed similar footsteps through the same home state
01:01 and then tightened the bond
01:02 by not only attending Paul's summer camp for guards
01:05 as a college student in 2008,
01:07 but sticking by his side thereafter.
01:10 Paul told the rest of that story
01:12 on Draymond Green's podcast in 2024.
01:14 - My family went to Disney World in Orlando.
01:19 My wife, like, little Chris, my parents, everybody,
01:23 and Steph went with us.
01:25 Steph went to Disney World with us
01:26 and we worked out and all that.
01:28 - From then on, Paul never really had a problem with Steph.
01:32 He and his counterpart were bound to become rivals,
01:35 but they maintained a good relationship.
01:38 It was the Warriors with whom Paul feuded.
01:42 A deep, bitter rivalry between teams
01:45 upped the individual stakes
01:47 and created a pretty unique beef.
01:50 So let's talk about teams.
01:52 Steph Curry got drafted by the Warriors in 2009.
01:56 He was pretty good, the team was pretty bad.
01:59 Put a pin in them.
02:01 In 2011, Chris Paul declined to extend his contract
02:04 with the Hornets, pushing them to trade him.
02:07 Most people have heard of the notorious
02:10 Lakers trade that got vetoed.
02:12 Fewer remember that the Hornets also had a deal
02:15 on the table with Golden State.
02:17 Paul for Curry and the Warriors' freshly drafted
02:21 hopeful co-star, Klay Thompson.
02:24 Paul didn't wanna play for the stinky Warriors,
02:26 so that trade didn't come to pass.
02:29 Steph was just flattered to have his value measured
02:32 against that of a franchise player like Paul.
02:35 Ultimately, Paul went to the LA Clippers,
02:38 marking a huge shift for a historically bereft franchise.
02:42 LA's Blake Griffin was an instant star at power forward.
02:46 Add the league's best point guard and a ton of depth
02:49 and you had a contender in the making.
02:52 Now the Pacific Division had two stacked rosters
02:56 gunning for glory.
02:58 And also the Warriors were there too.
03:00 Curry missed most of the '11-'12 season because of injuries,
03:04 so Golden State sagged, while Paul led the Clippers
03:08 to their best finish in franchise history to date.
03:11 In 2012, 2013, the Warriors finally got somewhere
03:15 and gave us a hint of what lay ahead.
03:18 Steph was healthy and excellent,
03:20 Klay stepped up as a viable second scorer,
03:23 and well, Draymond wasn't Draymond yet, but he had arrived.
03:27 Golden State won 47 games, and three of those wins
03:31 came against the 56-win Clippers.
03:34 That wasn't a random event.
03:36 The Warriors were pretty open about the fact
03:38 that they circled Clipper matchups on the schedule.
03:41 They even had the crowd do a playoff-style whiteout
03:44 when the Clippers visited town.
03:46 And yeah, then they backed up their words
03:48 and beat LA in three out of four matchups that season.
03:52 Chris Paul was pissed.
03:54 Pissed at his own team's helplessness,
03:57 surely pissed at that kid from his summer camp
03:59 outplaying him, and pissed at how much the Warriors
04:02 celebrated some regular season upsets.
04:05 Here, from that first matchup,
04:07 is Steph drawing a game-clinching charge
04:10 and the Warriors bench reacting
04:11 like they'd all won the lottery.
04:13 Chris didn't forget that.
04:15 Later that season, and the one game LA prevailed,
04:18 observers noticed Paul playing extra hard against Curry,
04:21 as if to reinforce the natural pecking order.
04:24 But that pecking order was exactly what motivated Steph.
04:28 A few years later, Draymond said that Curry
04:31 invented a personal vendetta against Paul
04:34 simply because he wanted to surpass him.
04:36 Steph confirmed his rivalry with Paul fueled him.
04:39 But vendetta is perhaps too strong a word.
04:44 Paul remained Curry's friend.
04:46 They still talked, still had confidants
04:48 and associates in common.
04:50 They'd still be shooting commercials together
04:52 for years after this.
04:53 Any vendetta had to be somewhat contrived.
04:56 Draymond Green certainly had something to do with that.
05:00 Many years later, in his 2024 podcast episode
05:03 with Chris Paul, he said as much.
05:05 - I got to figure out how to change this relationship.
05:08 If I can, let me see how I can get in between this
05:11 and cause some arguments and break this shit up.
05:13 - Green's thinking was basically that before Paul
05:16 could use his mentorship of Curry
05:18 as a psychological advantage,
05:20 the Warriors had to make him the enemy.
05:22 But this is Chris Paul and the Clippers we're talking about.
05:25 They didn't need any help being enemies.
05:28 They were already becoming a bit of a villain
05:31 across the NBA with a reputation for being cheaper,
05:35 whinier and dirtier than most.
05:38 And well, if the Warriors didn't buy that reputation
05:41 before the 2013-2014 season, they surely did afterward.
05:45 The Clippers started things off that year
05:47 by excluding the Warriors
05:49 from their pre-game chapel services in November.
05:52 And the rest of the season
05:53 was just one incident after another.
05:56 The rivalry curdled into a true inter-team feud,
06:01 war amid basketball.
06:02 And it culminated in a punishing seven-game series
06:05 to open the 2014 playoffs,
06:07 full of plenty more strange and feisty moments.
06:12 Now, only some of this stuff involved Chris Paul.
06:15 If you had to pick a primary visible antagonist
06:18 on the Clipper side, it would probably be Blake Griffin.
06:22 And yet, during that first-round playoff series,
06:25 Maurice Spates stated very clearly
06:27 that Golden State didn't see Griffin
06:30 or anyone else as the worst Clipper.
06:32 It was Chris Paul.
06:33 He starts all that stuff.
06:35 LA wasn't like that before he arrived.
06:38 So even if other Clippers manned the front lines of the beef,
06:42 Paul was seen as the general, I guess.
06:45 Not that he totally avoided the fray.
06:48 Game three of that series ended with Curry
06:50 missing a critical three-pointer,
06:52 then insisting that Paul had fouled him.
06:54 Paul denied the charges
06:56 and also got into a shouting match with the Warriors bench.
07:00 But the real critical moment in the 2014 playoff beef
07:03 came at its conclusion.
07:06 Game seven in Los Angeles was close,
07:08 but the favored Clippers held off the upset
07:11 and advanced to the second round.
07:13 After the final buzzer, the Warriors repaired
07:16 to the Staples Center visitors' locker room
07:18 where they sat mourning their defeat
07:21 until they were interrupted.
07:23 "Awful quiet in there!" shouted someone
07:26 in a tunnel outside the locker room.
07:28 But who was it?
07:29 Some Warriors thought it was a Clipper's assistant.
07:32 Sam Amick reported that when players
07:34 burst out of the locker room to confront their heckler,
07:37 all they found was some ball boys.
07:39 Nevertheless, some Clippers came out to the hallway
07:42 and the moment escalated into members of both teams
07:45 hollering at each other with police stepping in.
07:48 According to Amick's report, Chris Paul was there,
07:51 not directly battling anyone,
07:52 but just provoking the Warriors with his mere presence.
07:56 But then there's this.
07:58 Speaking to the Ringer in 2022,
08:00 Andrew Bogut insisted it was Paul himself
08:03 who mocked the Warriors from outside their locker room.
08:06 - And we hear Chris Paul in the tunnel like,
08:08 "It's awfully quiet in that locker room now, huh?
08:10 It's awfully quiet.
08:11 You guys are awfully quiet now, isn't it?"
08:14 - Like other accounts, Bogut placed Paul
08:16 at the fringe of the resulting hullabaloo,
08:18 but accused him of starting it and then feigning ignorance.
08:22 - Yeah, whole team comes from the other side
08:24 and then Chris is at the back of the pack like,
08:26 "What happened? What happened? I don't know.
08:27 I didn't say anything."
08:28 And we're just like, "Come on, dude."
08:29 - Whose version of events is correct?
08:31 Sam Amick is an excellent reporter,
08:33 but he wasn't as close to the scene.
08:35 Andrew Bogut heard the shouting first person,
08:38 but surely brings some bias to his telling,
08:41 and, you know, he's Andrew Bogut.
08:43 We can't know for sure whether Chris Paul
08:45 was the actual instigator or just a provocative bystander,
08:50 but maybe it doesn't matter.
08:52 The Warriors targeted Chris Paul for their hatred,
08:54 and they would latch on to any reason to hate him more,
08:57 even a made-up one.
08:59 Paul's Clippers would be the last Western Conference team
09:03 to eliminate the Warriors for quite a long time.
09:07 In 2014-15, Steph Curry ascended.
09:10 He snatched Paul's ankles on more than one occasion.
09:13 This okey-doke made Paul the butt of so many jokes.
09:17 By season's end, Curry also snatched Paul's reputation
09:21 as the best point guard in the NBA,
09:23 winning league MVP in a landslide,
09:25 something Paul hadn't done.
09:27 And speaking of things Paul hadn't done,
09:30 the Warriors shocked the league by winning it all in 2015,
09:34 from first-round losers to champions in one season.
09:38 Paul and the still-empty-handed Clippers got jumped in line.
09:42 It had to hurt.
09:44 Steph said he probably wasn't gonna be shooting
09:46 any more State Farm commercials with Chris.
09:49 And, of course, the Warriors did not budge
09:51 from the top of the West, while LA unraveled.
09:54 Paul wouldn't get another crack at the Warriors
09:57 until his next stop, Houston, in 2017.
10:01 Paul, James Harden, and the Rockets
10:03 were built to beat the Warriors,
10:04 obsessed with beating the Warriors.
10:07 Their failure to do so pushed Paul's beef
10:10 with Golden State to a new level.
10:12 2017-2018 brought us the beef's most famous meme,
10:16 Paul sharing a laugh with Golden State coach Steve Kerr,
10:19 only to flip expressions on a dime.
10:22 Houston won that game, and when the two teams met
10:25 in the Western Conference Finals,
10:27 the Rockets were favored to win on that stage, too.
10:30 In game four, Paul got tangled up with Green a bit.
10:33 In game five, Paul hit a three in Curry's eye,
10:36 then stole his signature shimmy celebration to rub it in.
10:39 Houston would go on to win that one
10:41 and pull ahead three to two in the series.
10:44 But before that victory was in the bag,
10:47 Paul pulled his hamstring, and the rest is history.
10:51 He sat game six and seven, which Houston blew
10:54 in an infamous collapse.
10:56 Paul was foiled, again.
10:58 The Warriors won the West, then won it all, again.
11:02 In this case, it wasn't just Paul
11:05 who'd have to hear about it all summer.
11:07 The Warriors saw off-season headlines,
11:10 imagining how the series would've gone
11:12 if Paul stayed healthy.
11:13 Maybe they'd gotten lucky this time.
11:15 Well, here you go, everyone.
11:17 Rematch, someone gets to prove something.
11:20 In the 2019 Conference Semis,
11:22 the Warriors were favorites, and Paul was extra feisty.
11:26 He got ejected at the end of a losing game one.
11:29 Houston fell down 2-0 before holding serve at home.
11:33 After his bad game three in Houston,
11:35 Curry booked court time in the Rockets' arena
11:37 to get some shots up in preparation for game four,
11:40 only to find that Paul had booked the same court,
11:43 and he couldn't do his workout.
11:46 Curry suspected foul play, though Paul later denied it.
11:50 Couldn't deny the stuff, though.
11:52 Paul got into it with Draymond Green.
11:55 He got into it with Kevin Durant,
11:56 provoking him with a little shove,
11:58 then selling the return shove to draw a foul.
12:01 And most galling to the Warriors,
12:03 he clipped Andre Aguidala's knee from behind
12:05 while they were fighting for a rebound.
12:07 Golden State players called that play dirty.
12:10 So when the Warriors pulled ahead
12:12 and eventually won that series,
12:14 they made it about Chris Paul.
12:16 Towards the end of the decisive game six,
12:18 Curry heckled his old friend
12:20 for kicking him off the practice court.
12:23 And after that series-clinching win,
12:25 the Warriors dedicated their victory to one man.
12:28 Or maybe dedicated is the wrong word.
12:30 Here's what Brian Windhorst heard.
12:32 - Running down the hallway to the locker room,
12:35 they were shouting down the hall
12:37 towards the Rockets' locker room,
12:39 "F Chris Paul, F Chris Paul."
12:43 - For most of the Warriors, the reasoning here was obvious.
12:46 It's the same reason anyone has a problem with Chris Paul.
12:49 He's annoying and he gets too physical at times.
12:52 And for a period of time,
12:54 he also embodied a reminder
12:56 of Golden State's final moment of weakness.
12:59 Paul's Clippers were the last Western team
13:02 to eliminate them before the dynasty.
13:04 And he may or may not have gone out of his way
13:06 to rub that in at the time.
13:08 The Warriors never forgot that.
13:10 Even Steph, long after it mattered.
13:13 This bit of lip-reading by ESPN comes from 2023.
13:17 For motivation and for all the ordinary reasons,
13:20 the Warriors deemed Chris Paul their enemy.
13:23 Between beating them in 2014,
13:26 then failing to beat them every year after that,
13:28 Paul proved more than willing to play that part.
13:32 In the end, Paul became one with the enemy.
13:35 He wore colors he once hated,
13:38 and those enemies swallowed their pride to accept him.
13:41 That conclusion serves as a reminder
13:44 that a feud like this one is largely contrived
13:47 for the purposes of competition.
13:49 It's a reminder that this story began with a friendship.
13:52 And, well, it tells you that this is the rare beef
13:55 with a clear winner.
13:57 (gentle music)
13:59 (electronic music)
14:02 [Music]