Chris Paul's vocal leadership style isn't for everyone — ask the 2025-26 Los Angeles Clippers — but for the 2019-20 Oklahoma City Thunder, it was more than the organization had ever anticipated. It impacted a young group of players in the best kind of ways, led by first-round pick Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and two-way guard Lu Dort. As a proud dad watches a kid graduate college, Paul watched the Thunder blossom into NBA champions in 2025.
Half a decade removed from his lone season with Gilgeous-Alexander and Oklahoma City, Paul was sitting courtside for Game 2 of the NBA Finals at the Paycom Center, and before Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when SGA was presented with his MVP trophy.
Gilgeous-Alexander credits Paul for showing him the ropes throughout his second NBA season, first with the Thunder, he said, per ESPN's Tim MacMahon.
“Chris really was the first person to show me what it meant to be a professional,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He was always doing extra. It was more so off the court than on the court. It was the things you don't think about as a kid. As a kid, you're taught to just work super hard, but you're not really taught nutrition and taking care of your body, getting massages, getting treatment, those type of things he was always on top of.
“He just always had a get-better mentality in every way, in every way of life.”
Paul, who was at a crossroads in his career, knew his time with the Thunder was temporary because the organization was undergoing a complete rebuild. Both he and the Thunder front office were on the same page regarding Chris' long-term plans. However, that didn't mean Oklahoma City couldn't be competitive in a loaded Western Conference.
Paul would invite his teammates to his house for team dinners, giving Thunder prospects a peek into how a future Hall of Fame guard, as CP3, studies game film, breaks down teams' game plans, and maintains a strict diet. As he connected with his new team, Paul took the time to get to know the players.
“We'd just be chilling,” Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN recently. “But how we used to watch the games, he was never, like, just watching them. He was always watching 'em to learn.”
Some of the lessons learned from that one season with Paul still stick with Gilgeous-Alexander and Dort, to this day, including the iPad Lu uses to study game film and the essential app that comes with it. Both were gifted to Dort, an undrafted prospect on a two-way deal at the time, by Paul and are still in use in 2025.
It's one of the many tools that's helped mold Dort into an All-Defensive First Team guard considered one of the better on-ball defenders in the NBA. The Thunder finished 44-28, fifth in the Western Conference. However, it wasn't always smooth sailing between Paul and his new Thunder teammates. As with any process that yields growth, there are always ups and downs before progress is made.
When Dort would pass up open threes, Paul reprimanded the young guard on a non-guaranteed deal, shooting at a 29.7% clip from beyond the arc. For Paul, Lu's defensive efforts warranted him to take more shots despite his poor shooting percentage. Today, Dort connects on 41.2% of his threes.
One day, Gilgeous-Alexander received a morning phone call on an off-day during an early-season road trip.
“Let's go lift,” Paul said, more of a demand than a suggestion, as ESPN's MacMahon noted.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander revealed he thought weight-lifting was more of an offseason workout for guards. Chris Paul showed him otherwise before the two Thunder teammates began lifting together regularly.
“Those are things that when you're teammates, that's just normal,” Paul said. “If I got something going on and they can help me, they help me. If they got something going on, that's just a teammate, [sharing] the knowledge. With them being younger, I was just trying to show [them]. I think that's the importance of vets.”
The fifth-seeded Thunder lost its opening-round series to the Houston Rockets, 4-3, but it was an overachieving season for Oklahoma City. Paul averaged 17.6 points, 6.7 assists, 5.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals. He made the All-NBA Second Team, finished seventh in MVP voting, and would lead the Phoenix Suns to an NBA Finals appearance in 2020-21.
Why things didn't work out with Chris Paul, Clippers
So, how come the Clippers weren't able to leverage Chris Paul's strengths? What are the contrasting differences between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the 2019-20 Thunder and this year's Clippers squad? A lot.
For starters, the average age on Los Angeles' roster is 33.2, the oldest in NBA history, making it a difficult time to instill change. Not to suggest Paul's leadership style mirrored his approach to the manner in which he spoke to a 19-year-old Lu Dort in Oklahoma City. However, given what we know about Chris's vocal style, it isn't easy to imagine a quiet CP3 amid a 6-18 start.
Paul's voice couldn't have resonated the way it once did because the audience's age had changed, as had his impact on the basketball court — making things infinitely more difficult. Paul was averaging 2.9 points and 3.3 assists in 14.3 minutes before he was abruptly sent home in the middle of the night. Aging NBA stars can sympathize with an All-Star losing a step or two, but this felt as if it went beyond Chris' game and his approach.
Sending one of your franchise's all-time best players home on the road during the wee hours feels way more personal than most shocking NBA moves in recent history.
