Chris Paul talks seeing a championship in his future, the Julius Hodge incident, getting drafted by New Orleans, and his almost-Miami trade with Dwyane and LeBron on “The Why with Dwyane Wade” podcast.
We share highlights from this week’s episode of the iHeartPodcasts series “The Why with Dwyane Wade”–a co-production of iHeartPodcasts and Wade’s 59th & Prairie Entertainment–featuring a sit-down interview with 12x NBA All-Star Chris Paul, who delves into the specifics of his draft, including the moment he told the then-Charlotte Bobcats coaching staff they needed to trade their #5 and #12 picks up in order to secure him.
He also shares that he was absolutely certain the Atlanta Hawks were going to pick him, all the way up until they called Marvin Williams’ name.
The guys then talk about Chris’ emotional high school game where he scored 61 points after the tragic loss of his grandfather.
Dwyane then asks Chris what really happened in his altercation with Julius Hodge and Chris shares what led up to the moment he ultimately punched Hodge.
The guys later delve into the behind-the-scenes conversations between them and LeBron which almost landed all three guys in Miami together, but a conflict over who would wear #3 ended all trade discussions.
At the end of the episode, Chris talks candidly about being traded out of Houston saying, “I basically got myself traded from Houston.”
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- 26:35 – CHRIS ON THE TIME HE STRAIGHT UP TOLD CHARLOTTE THEY NEEDED TO TRADE UP IN THE DRAFT IN ORDER TO GET HIM
CP: “So after the workout they take me into an office, like a bunch of people with Charlotte. They take me into an office and they sit me there and they saying, ‘What [are] you hearing about the draft?’ I was like, ‘Well, y’all got the fifth pick and the twelfth pick, if y’all want me, y’all need to trade up those two picks to get me.’ I told them that. I knew I wasn’t going to drop to five.”
- 30:15 – CHRIS ON THINKING HE WAS GOING TO BE DRAFTED #2 TO THE ATLANTA HAWKS
CP: “They say, ‘Number two pick, the Atlanta Hawks–’ I started getting up. Like literally I just knew [because] let me tell you this, the basketballs I was working out with, was Atlanta Hawks basketballs. I knew I was going to the Hawks.”
Dwyane: “You was wearing the gear and everything?”
CP: “Basically. I had found a house and all of that. I thought I was going to the Hawks. They said, ‘Marvin Williams.’ I was like ‘Oh man.’”
- 30:38 – CHRIS ON NOT WANTING TO GO TO UTAH OR NEW ORLEANS, HAVING A TRUTHFUL CONVERSATION WITH NEW ORLEANS HC BYRON SCOTT
CP: “So then they say, ‘The number three pick, the Utah Jazz–’ No offense to y’all [but] I had my fingers crossed, don’t say my name. Please don’t say my name! Please!…That was too far west for me, I’m east coast! …Now it’s coming to the fourth pick, now mind you, I forgot to tell you this part of the story, when I went to eat at [TGI] Fridays with B. Scott [Byron Scott]…that was my first time meeting him…and he was like, ‘Whatchu thinking?’ And I told him straight up, I was honest with him because he was like, ‘they said you ain’t wanna come work out.’ And I was like, ‘Look, no disrespect, I’m from North Carolina, I’d rather go to Charlotte. So night of the draft, they said, ‘Number four pick, the New Orleans Hornets–’ and they said my name. When I tell this story people are like damn, were you like damn? No! This was still a life-changing experience. I was so excited, my family, we was going crazy, crying, hugging. And I went right to the back and I called B. Scott and he was like your workout was just too good, I couldn’t pass up on you.”
Dwyane: “Wait so let’s go back to the second pick in the draft moment. So you didn’t– like when I got drafted, I was told right before the pick that I was going fifth. So I had about 20 seconds to kinda get myself together. No one said anything to you about–”
CP: “Nah. I really thought I had a chance to go to the Hawks.”
Dwyane: “I gotta go back and watch that draft because I wanna see you get up a little bit.”
- 56:58 – CHRIS ON SCORING 61 POINTS IN HIS HIGH SCHOOL GAME AFTER HIS GRANDFATHER WAS KILLED
CP: “I was scoring crazy, I was scoring, I was scoring–”
Dwyane: “And you’re not a selfish player so you never tried to score 50, 60.”
CP: “Right and I used to just steal the ball all the time. The only person who even knew I was thinking of doing this at the time was my back court mate, a dude named David Gillette. My parents didn’t know. But the game was packed. By this time, every high school game that I played, the crowd was packed. So I’m in the game, I’m scoring, I’m scoring. I sort of get wind of how many I got. I don’t even remember how I was keep track.”
Dwyane: “Oh we can keep track of our points now. You know we keep track of our buckets now.”
CP: “You know what’s so funny? Is I, and I mean this for real. I never did. I’d be so locked into the game that for most of my career I never knew how many points I had. But in this game, when I got to 57, then I got to 59. So when I got 59, I remember this so clearly. I remember getting the ball on the left side of the court, and I sort of I slanted, cut across the court, did a sort of in and out and I shot a floater and I got fouled. And that gave me 61.”
Dwyane: “You made the floater. Because I remember seeing you at the free throw line.”
CP: “Yup so I knew I had 61. And come to find out, the state record at the time I think was 67 held by MJ. There was probably four minutes left in the game. I probably could have caught him but I just went to the free throw line and I threw the ball out of bounds. My dad was my assistant coach at the time and I just remember walking off the court, falling into my dad’s arms because, yeah man, that was a hit for our whole city, losing my grandad.”
Dwyane: “Did you feel like the crowd started to know what was going on? Like as you was getting closer to 61, do you think anybody–”
CP: “Yeah, if you look at the footage from it you can see people start whispering…and when I hit 61, the whole place went nuts. It went crazy. I still got that ball.”
- 1:05:45 – CHRIS REFLECTS ON THE INCIDENT WITH JULIUS HODGE, HITTING THE GAME WINNER, AND GETTING SUSPENDED FOR THE NEXT GAME
Dwyane: “I only seen what the cameras showed me. So that’s why I want you to tell me about the moment because obviously you guys get into an interaction.”
CP: “Yup, I hit him…So what’s crazy is that was the last game of the [regular] season…and it was probably one of the toughest things that I had to deal with because I don’t remember what quarter it was but obviously he was talking crazy and…in college anything goes. Right? When I talk about fans…they’ll write your girlfriend’s cell phone number on a board and hold it up and start chanting. They did that to one of my teammates. So we playing at NC State and it’s a heated game, your boy [Julius] he used to talk junk during the game…there was a point in the game where free throws going on and I can hear some students chanting ‘I killed your grandfather.’ Right? So you think I’m emotional now? I was emotional then. So I’m on the free throw line, I look over at one of my coaches, Jeff Battle who was like ‘You alright?’ I sort of got tears going down my eyes. Me and Julius had been getting into it all game. So when I did hit him, I hit him…it was before all of the [camera] reviews…so everybody go crazy. Well he down, the game going on.
…All I vaguely remember is some of his family members came down to the court. You know like talking. And you know why it’s so funny? There’s one game in my whole college career where my family wasn’t there. That game. It was CJ [Chris’ brother]’s senior night…Nobody in my family was at that game. So the end of the game, I hit the game-winning shot…I didn’t get suspended until the next day. I got suspended for a game and I always hate this because…it was in the ACC tournament…Guess who we played the first game of the ACC Tournament? NC State. And I didn’t get to play.”
- 1:25:22 – CHRIS SAYS HIS CAREER IS COMPLETE WITHOUT A CHAMPIONSHIP, BUT STILL SEES ONE IN HIS FUTURE
Dwyane: “Will your career feel complete if you don’t win a championship?”
CP: “Straight up – even though I think I’m gonna win a championship before I’m done – yes, absolutely. I can’t even process not winning a championship right now. That’s literally how I’m built. But I love what I’ve been able to do with my career. And I was probably a lot more stressed about that once upon a time.”
- 1:34:40 – CHRIS AND DWYANE TALK ABOUT THEIR PLANS TO MEET UP WITH LEBRON IN MIAMI BUT THE TRADE WAS STOPPED OVER A DISPUTE ON WHO WAS GOING TO WEAR #3
Dwyane: “Do you remember the call with you, Bron and I? Do you remember us getting on the phone?”
CP: “…We was talking about me coming to Miami. We was talking about who was gonna have the ball in their hands, how it’s going to work. Then who was it? Was it CJ who said something about who was going to wear number three?”
Dwyane: “Bro, that’s what I wanted to get to. We talk about all of this, who gonna have the ball, how we’re all going to play together, no CP can have the ball. We done figured all that out. And then somebody said ‘Well who gon’ wear number three?’ Silence. Messed the whole trade up…because CP couldn’t wear number three in Miami, messed the whole trade up.”
CP: “I don’t know what they was gon’ do. Since you was older, you could probably wear 33.”
Dwayne: “I wasn’t older. I was prime! I was in my prime.”
CP: “I know but cuz you’re older than me, you could just wear 33.”
Dwyane: “So this is the conversation we’re having and I’m like ‘that’s my number!’ And he’s like, ‘Well that’s my number.’”
CP: “What are we gonna do? CP6, no that ain’t it.”
Dwyane: “…I’m saying [Pat] Riley didn’t pull the trigger because CP wasn’t going to be able to wear number three in Miami.”
CP: “Let me tell you, we talked for a while too. We talked about what the team would look like, all this different type stuff and then it was CJ sitting over there and he goes, ‘What number are you gon’ wear?’ What number am I gon’ wear? What number is he going to wear?”
Dwyane: “And that ended the whole conversation…I remember when that question was posed I was like ‘What are you talking about? Just get another number.’ And CP was like no. Whole trade, all because of a jersey number.”
CP: “DWade wanted to sacrifice everything else, he didn’t want to sacrifice a damn number, let me tell you.”
- 1:41:22 – CHRIS SHARES HIS SIDE OF THE STORY WHEN MELO WAS TRADED FROM HOUSTON; GOT A PRIVATE JET SO MELO DIDN’T HAVE TO FLY HOME ON THE TEAM PLANE
CP: “He [Melo] tells me what happens with Daryl [Morey] and I’m like, ‘What?’ Tells me he came to his room, told him he’d get him a flight back to New York. How do you say this to this man? …So we were going to play San Antonio the next day. Try to tell that man he could get on the team plane and fly back with us the next day…This is some of the most disrespectful shit I’d ever seen…I know he said something about fly on the team plane back to Houston after you just told the mane you don’t need his services no more…So I think I might have hit Daryl and tell him how fucked up he was and how disrespectful he was. So we play San Antonio that next night. I got a plane on my one. Me and Jada and Melo flew back to Houston. He was not going to do that and then expect him to get on the team plane afterwards.”
- 1:48:16 – CHRIS SAYS HE GOT HIMSELF TRADED FROM HOUSTON, FOUND OUT THROUGH AN ALERT
CP: “I basically got myself traded from Houston. I called Daryl [Morey] and the coach, [Dan] D’Antoni to tell them somebody could come [and] end up playing on the team with us. But what ended up happening was Daryl called me while I was in Vegas…so the night that started everything was when Kawhi [Leonard] went to the Clippers and then Paul George go traded to the Clippers. Russ[ell Westbrook] was still in OKC and Shay went to OKC for the trade…I seen Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] in Vegas, I dapped up Shai I was like this is gonna be good for you, you gon’ get to hoop, do your thing in OKC. I go over to the gym to go work out and Daryl call me…He said ‘I was just calling you to make sure you didn’t wanna go to OKC.’ I was like, ‘No, why I don’ moved 15 people to Houston.’ And he was like, ‘Okay I was just making sure. He was like I would never trade you to somewhere you didn’t want to go because you chose to come to us from the Clippers.’ I chose to go to Houston from LA…I’m at the house chilling, I was on the phone with Jada [Chris’ wife] and next thing you know [the alert] said that I was getting traded [to OKC]. And then my phone started ringing and it was Daryl calling. So I ain’t know…Daryl was like, ‘Hey man, it just moves so fast.’ I said, ‘It’s all good I just want you to tell me one thing. You said you wasn’t going to trade me, right?’ He said, ‘Yeah I said that but–’ I said, ‘That’s all I needed to know.’”