After signing a five-year, $107 million contract to remain with the Clippers this offseason, these are the types of details Paul is thinking about now. Three years of speculation about his future are finally over.
"It feels great to have that behind me because now you can just play basketball, and there will be more questions about the games and not about what's going to happen," Paul said in a wide-ranging interview with ESPNLosAngeles.com this week. "And I think it gives our team, and the free agents coming to the team, more consistency. They know what to expect now."In the past three years alone, James, Howard, Anthony and Williams have all seen their reputations take a hit because of the way they went about their free-agent process.
All of which makes Paul's behavior that much more impressive. Why was he able to come through the same set of circumstances relatively unscathed and far more marketable and popular than before, while the others didn't?While Howard has been soul-searching on the public stage for the past three seasons, Paul is pretty much the same guy he was back in New Orleans. He kept his business in a tight, close-knit circle and set it aside until he could deal with it this summer.
"I tell you the truth," he said. "I'm so lucky to have a simple support system. I don't have an entourage. I've got my wife, I've got my brother, I've got my parents . . . so all the speculation that people want to talk about . . . these are the people who are with me every day."
Ramona Shelburne, ESPN Los Angeles
He also talks about the rumors that he and Dwight were planning to team up.
