After ruffling the proverbial feathers of Utah Jazz fans, Chris Paul is reframing his recent comments on John Stockton’s assist record.
Depending on who you talk to, Chris Paul is either forever determined to troll the Utah Jazz and their fans with inflammatory remarks or he’s a misunderstood dude whose words continue to be misconstrued and taken out of context.
Regarding recent comments about Jazz legend John Stockton‘s assist record — perhaps the NBA’s ultimate unbreakable mark — CP3 is doing his best to let people know he’s the latter.
Let’s back up.
When Paul moved past Gary Payton on the Association’s all-time assists chart earlier this month, the Houston Rockets point-man was asked about catching Stockton at No. 1. His response seemed to indicate some home cooking on the stat-keeping front. Said Paul —
"“I don’t like saying never, but ain’t nobody catching that. I don’t know who the statisticians were, who used to do the stats in Utah, but ain’t nobody catching that.”"
A contingent of Jazz fans and even some of the talking heads around the hoops blogosphere took those comments as a bit of a shot at Stockton or the validity of his record. Others simply wrote it off as CP3 making light of the situation while giving the man props.
After Paul’s 17-dime night against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday put him over the 9,000-assist mark on Saturday, he made a point to do some clean-up on the controversy. Here’s CP3’s clarification, via the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen —
CP3 used occasion of surpassing 9,000 assists, in a gm he had 17, to set the record straight. "People misconstrued what I said last time about John Stockton. His record will never be broken because he was so durable. He played night in night out. It also means I'm getting older."
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) February 24, 2019
To me, Paul’s statement rings true. And, really, it’s nice to see somebody acknowledging Basketball John for being able to lace up the sneakers and hit the hardwood virtually every night for two decades. Too often people seemingly want to put an asterisk on his record-setting 15,806 assists because he did play for so long.
More from The J-Notes
- With the FIBA World Cup over for Simone Fontecchio, it’s clear he deserves minutes for the Utah Jazz
- Best, Worst and Most likely scenarios for the Utah Jazz this season
- Hoops Hype downplays the significance of the Utah Jazz’s valuable assets
- 3 Utah Jazz players who have the most to gain or lose this season
- Former Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gay is a free agent still and it shouldn’t surprise anyone
Never mind the fact that he had enough assists to best the current No. 2 on the all-time list, Jason Kidd, six years before he called it a career. And Kidd himself played 19 years to get to 12,091 dimes.
I will say this about Paul, though. It’s worth noting that these misunderstandings with regards to the Jazz keep happening with him. His comments about Jazz “homers” in consecutive playoffs were still fresh in fans’ minds before the latest controversy.
Maybe next time a reporter asks him about something related to the Jazz, he should just plead the fifth.