Chris Paul’s Latest Injury Adds To His Terrible Postseason Luck

The Phoenix Suns will be without a prominent member of their starting lineup during the most critical part of the season. Chris Paul, who left Game 2 versus the Denver Nuggets with groin tightness, is expected to miss some time in this second round series after undergoing an MRI.

Phoenix officially listed Paul as “day-to-day” with a left groin strain. Perhaps it’s a form of gamesmanship to not rule him out ahead of Game 3, but it’s notable that Paul has also been listed as day-to-day with various injuries that took weeks to fully heal.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Paul is expected to be reevaluated in one week, but that was not confirmed by the team.

While we don’t know the severity of the injury, what’s undeniable is how poor the timing is for Phoenix. With the Suns trailing 2-0 in this series, the next two home games are must-wins for a team with championship aspirations — and the pressure that comes with making a trade deadline acquisition for one of the all-time greatest scorers.

Paul injured his groin Monday with five minutes remaining in the third quarter, battling for a defensive rebound with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. He immediately went to the locker room and did not return:

After the game, Suns head coach Monty Williams said they didn’t know the extent of the injury. But he did reveal that Paul couldn’t play through it in the moment.

“It just looked like he was boxing out, and he just came up where he couldn’t push off of it or anything,” Williams said.

There was some hope that a three-day layoff in this series would give Paul ample time to recover. Because of how quickly the Suns and Nuggets advanced past the first round, this is a rare instance where there’s an extended break after Game 2.

Game 3 in Phoenix isn’t until Friday, May 5, while Game 4 will be roughly 46 hours later. But with the information we have available, you can probably expect Paul to miss both home games as he recovers. For someone with this many miles on his body, it wouldn’t make sense to rush back and risk further aggravation.

Immediately following Game 2, Devin Booker and the rest of his Suns teammates didn’t have the details on Paul’s injury. Just based on him leaving a playoff game in the third quarter, something Paul would never do unless he was in severe pain, there was a sense this could be more than a one-game thing.

“It’s an unfortunate event, obviously,” Booker said. “I don’t know what it is yet, and I haven’t really gotten to talk to him. But all we can do is hope he has a speedy recovery. We’re going to be behind him. We’re going to hold it down while he’s out, or if he’s out. We’ll just take it from there.”

On Wednesday when the team returned to Phoenix, Williams mentioned that Paul didn’t go through drills or contact during practice.

“I talked to him a few times yesterday, and he’s frustrated for sure,” Williams said. “I mean, you train your whole career for these type of moments. But he’s also optimistic about our guys, how well we can play, and where we’re trending.”

To that point, Phoenix was finding success in the third quarter of Game 2. They had a six-point lead when Paul went down with the injury. Their offense was starting to find a groove after struggling for the first 24 minutes.

Up to that point in the game, they had a 112.5 offensive rating in the minutes Paul was on the court. When he exited, leaving Cam Payne and Damion Lee to soak up most of the guard minutes, the Suns’ offensive rating plummeted to 84.8 for the rest of the night. They scored just 28 points on 33 possessions after Paul left, including a stretch of 1-of-12 shooting from deep.

“That was the tough part about the injury — before he got hurt, he could just see the offense starting to figure out a few things,” Williams said. “Then, he comes up with an injury that he can’t control. So that was a bit of a downer, but we’ve always had a mentality of bouncing back, regrouping, and doing whatever we can to be productive on the floor. And he was a part of that today.”

Paul, who turns 38 years old on May 6, is far too familiar with these playoff setbacks. This is another unfortunate chapter in his postseason career, which has been riddled with injuries at every stop.

Taking a trip down memory lane, let’s look back on just the last 10 years.

• 2014: Injured his right hamstring late in Game 1 of the Clippers’ first round series versus Golden State, but continued to play through it and didn’t miss any of his team’s 13 games.
• 2015: Injured his left hamstring in Game 7 of the Clippers’ first round series versus San Antonio, but stayed in the game and closed out the Spurs with 27 points on 9-of-13 shooting, including a walk-off floater with one second remaining. Missed the following two games against Houston in the second round.
• 2016: Suffered a fracture in his right hand during Game 4 of the Clippers’ first round series versus Portland. His team was trailing by six points in the third quarter, with a chance to go up 3-1 if they pulled out a victory. He didn’t play for the rest of the series, nor did his teammate Blake Griffin, who reinjured his left quad in the same game.
• 2017: No postseason injury (first round)
• 2018: Injured his right hamstring late in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, as his Houston Rockets put Golden State on the brink of elimination. He missed the final two games of that series, with the Rockets losing Game 7 on their home floor after leading by 15 in the first half.
• 2019: No postseason injury, but missed five weeks during the 2018-19 regular season because of a strained left hamstring.
• 2020: No postseason injury (first round)
• 2021: Suffered a right shoulder contusion in Game 1 of the Suns’ first round series versus the Lakers. He played through it and didn’t miss any time, but also aggravated the shoulder during Game 5. When the Suns advanced to the West Finals, he missed the first two games of the series with Covid. Then, during the NBA Finals, he played through an injured left wrist. He got surgery on the wrist during the offseason to repair partially torn ligaments, which marked the fourth hand surgery of his career.
• 2022: While not confirmed by Paul or the team, it was reported that he was playing through a left quad injury during the Suns’ second round series versus the Dallas Mavericks. There were also reports of him dealing with a sickness, but it was not confirmed to be Covid-related.
• 2023: Left groin injury, timetable not determined.

No all-time performer should be forced to watch from the sidelines this often during the most important moments of their playing career.

After this many years of injuries popping up at the worst time, it does make you wonder how much of this is awful luck. Labeling someone as ‘injury-prone’ is often unfair because they are largely out of the athlete’s control. Plus, it’s not as if Paul operates with a playstyle that increases the likelihood of these injuries.

He’s never been a high-flying point guard that embraces collisions. He’s not putting as much strain on his legs or lower body with elite acceleration and burst, especially at this stage of his career.

Maybe this is simply what happens when you’ve been a two-way guard for almost two decades, always looking to make an impact on every possession. The hamstring injuries are one thing — that’s about as unlucky as it gets. For someone that puts all of the necessary work in to stay in peak condition, there’s really no way to prevent those from happening. Then, with his various hand injuries, how is somebody going to tell a small guard (who’s already at a disadvantage because of his size) to not be active with his hands on defense?

This groin injury was another case of, “What can you do?” Knowing his team was getting out-hustled on the glass in the previous game, Paul was trying to do something about it. And it cost him.

For the most part, he’s aged gracefully for a small guard. That was always going to be the case when you factor in his shooting touch, intelligence, and leadership. The legends always find a way to make a difference when they get older. His decision to switch to a plant-based diet in July 2019 certainly extended his window of being a high-impact guard, evidenced by his All-NBA appearances from 2020 to 2022.

Some things are just out of your control as a player, no matter how diligently you train, and injuries happen to be one of them. Paul is in the conversation for the unluckiest superstar talent of this generation and it’s a shame he can never win the war of attrition.

He’s on the Suns’ books next year for $30.8 million, but there’s a partial guarantee of only $15.8 million. Phoenix will face some challenging questions this summer when it comes to roster construction. Depending on how their playoff run ends and whether or not Paul can return to make an impact, it may be time to examine alternative options if one of their integral pieces isn’t durable enough.