The Warriors’ sick, twisted Chris Paul experiment just might work

The Golden State Warriors are back, having proven their insatiable lust for revenge by dismantling the reigning “Losing to the Nuggets in the Conference Finals” champs, the Los Angeles Lakers, in a preseason matchup last weekend.

No, LeBron James and Austin Reaves didn’t suit up. And yes, it was the preseason, which many teams treat less seriously than a game of HORSE. But still we got a tiny glimpse of what this sick and twisted Chris Paul experiment might actually look like. 

It looks much better than what many, including me, feared. 

And yet, for all the ways this move sort of makes no sense in 2023, it seems to be coming together as well as possible (again, via interviews and exactly one preseason game). The Paul experiment is indeed a bit sick and twisted, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tip your cap to the audacity of it. If it works, it will surely go down in Warriors lore as the most unlikely redemption story in franchise history. Yes, even more than the Vladimir Radmanović era!

Seeing as how we’re all subject to the quirks of linear time, a year like that simply can’t happen again.

With the Big Three (Steph Curry/Klay Thompson/Draymond Green) firmly entrenched in basketball middle age, the window for championship runs is narrowing viciously — even if, yes, they really won the whole thing just in 2022. Whatever magic they conjured that season was unequivocally lost last year, and the squad took on a gloomy resignation to their fate. They knew it wasn’t their year, and so did we. It was something of a necessity to make a move to recalibrate the team and to get a clean break from that imprecise, meandering path they found themselves on.

The architect of this seismic shift would be none other than a former Warrior who drew just as much, if not more, ire than Chris Paul: Mike Dunleavy, their rookie general manager. When the news broke in July that Golden State had pulled the trigger to acquire Paul — a man many Warriors fans consider equal parts Hannibal Lecter and Voldemort — there was understandable grousing and a pervading sense of confusion. It was a wild move from a franchise that didn’t typically make wild moves. Even their biggest free agent signing of all time, a tall, skinny guy named Kevin Durant, was a meticulous courtship, months if not years in the planning. And Durant was squarely in his prime, not a 6-foot-tall-in-shoes, 38-year-old curmudgeon with a history of injuries and a well-known antipathy to the Warriors. Durant was a sure thing. Paul is very much not a sure thing. 

Dunleavy’s first big trade also doubled as the final repudiation of Joe Lacob’s controversial “two timelines” strategy. Not only was the team committing to their core, they were getting even older, acquiring an NBA graybeard to get them over the hump, and a longtime enemy no less. 

It may behoove us all, then, to recall that Paul is one of the absolute best point guards to ever play the game of basketball, something Warriors fans tend to forget, perhaps intentionally.  He’s been a thorn in Golden State’s side for more than a decade, first as a Clipper and then as a Rocket, a member of the team that almost (and arguably should have) dethroned the Warriors in 2018.

But he’s also the magma that tempered Steph Curry’s steel — first, as a friend and mentor; later as a rival, an enemy; and now, again, as a teammate hunting his first elusive championship ring. Curry is Curry in no small part because of Paul’s obstinance and wrath. But all that doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work on the court.

Which, how could it? It doesn’t make sense! 

And yet, on Saturday against the Lakers, we saw clear moments of the sort of harmony that one could imagine leading the Warriors to steamrolling the regular-season NBA. What was apparent right away is that Paul, even as a 38-year-old man, can still ball. This isn’t exactly surprising, as his Littlefinger-esque style of play was never predicated on athleticism, but on being the smartest, most cutthroat opportunist on the floor and having the skill to back it up.

The precision of Paul’s passes, the horrifyingly accurate midrange that he can nail almost unconsciously, his ability to remain calm during the closing minutes of a close game … these are essential gaps the Warriors have historically needed to fill. Their loose and occasionally off-the-cuff motion offense is enough to crush anyone in the open floor when they’re on and hitting shots, but late-game execution in the half-court has always haunted them. They get bogged down, hard. Despite the playmaking chops of Curry and even more so Green, getting an easy shot in crunch time has always been more excruciating than it should be. Paul should immediately ameliorate this with his steady hand and robotic finesse — assuming, you know, he and Green don’t punch each other at some point.

Perhaps more importantly, Curry and Paul looked like willing dance partners, running shrewd actions and moving the ball well. Paul’s slow and steady approach didn’t look so much like an opposing philosophy as it did a new wrinkle in an offense that was perhaps in need of a new secret wrinkle. Paul didn’t set the world on fire; he just went out there and did what he does. It’s only a sketch just barely starting to take shape, but now it’s real, no longer fan fiction.  

It’s a very large ask to demand someone subsume their entire identity, painstakingly crafted over decades, to help the collective — especially a collective that was, until a few months ago, THE enemy. Best case scenario? Chris Paul is going to get Klay Thompson looks he didn’t even know he wanted. He’s going to increase Moses Moody’s trade value by a magnitude unknown to man. Jonathan Kuminga could very plausibly gorge himself on pinpoint lobs from CP3. 

Still, the Chris Paul experiment is fraught with potential dynasty-ending hiccups. We mad scientists will have our next batch of results Friday night, when the Warriors take on the Lakers again for their second preseason game. 

And yet … it could work. It still seems silly. And certainly, sick and twisted. A “Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em” parable for the ages. It may well implode horrifically.

But if it does work? It might be the Warriors’ greatest achievement yet.