Nola.com article about CP3 and Willie Green's relationship

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In their two seasons as teammates on the Los Angeles Clippers, Chris Paul and Willie Green shared adjoining lockers.

The star point guard and the swingman role player had grown close in the 2010-11 season, when they were with the New Orleans Hornets. Paul and Green played one-on-one after every practice at the Alario Center. Paul admired Green’s competitiveness.

Paul also liked that Green could be unflinchingly honest.

The 2013-14 Clippers got the West’s No. 3 seed, but their season was in danger of coming to an end in the first round against the Golden State Warriors. At halftime of Game 7, they trailed the Warriors by eight points. Paul had seven points on seven shot attempts at the break. He was tentative. That prompted Green to deliver a straightforward message.

“Willie, he just got on me,” Paul said. "He was like, ‘We’re only going to win this game if you get aggressive.’ He said, ‘You have to shoot the ball.’ ”

Paul scored 15 points and handed out eight assists in the second half, and the Clippers rallied to win.

Eight years later, Paul and Green are involved in another first-round series, only this time they are on opposite sides. In his 17th season, Paul helped guide the Suns to the NBA’s best regular-season record. Green, in his first year as a head coach, prevented a slow start from sinking the Pelicans’ season. New Orleans rebounded after losing 12 of its first 13 games to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2018.

“It’s the craziest dynamic in this series,” Paul told The Times-Picayune. “I root so hard for Willie, for the city. When Willie got the job there, I probably had to be the happiest person. Because not only did he deserve a head coaching job, but the city of New Orleans deserved someone like him.”

Paul and Green did not know each other well before the one season they overlapped in New Orleans.

Green spent the first seven years of his career with the Philadelphia 76ers. When he was traded to the Hornets in September 2010, Green discovered he and Paul had similar upbringings. They were from tight-knit families whose Christian faith was important to them. Both loved being in the gym.

“Willie is just a gym rat,” Paul said. “He loves to hoop. We would kick it off the court. He was like a big brother to me. Just constantly in my ear talking to me.”

The 2010-11 Hornets had talent. Under first-year coach Monty Williams, they got the seventh seed. But their hopes of making a deep postseason run were damaged when power forward David West tore the ACL in his left knee with 10 games remaining in the regular season.

The Hornets lost to the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers 4-2 in their first-round series. In the final moments of Game 6, Paul buried his head in his hands. Green comforted him.

Paul requested a trade that offseason. The Hornets’ ownership situation was in flux after the NBA was forced to purchase the team from unpopular majority owner George Shinn. Paul wanted to go somewhere where he could compete for championships. Although it was his decision to ask out, he still felt fondness for New Orleans when the trade to the Los Angeles Clippers went through.

“I grew up in New Orleans,” Paul said. “I’m not who I am without being part of that city. I got drafted right after Katrina. All the relationships that I have there, it will never go away.

“That city, it’s not for everybody. But for the people that it's for, ain’t no city better.”

In February, the Pelicans traded for CJ McCollum. McCollum found out the trade was close to becoming official at 6:30 a.m. Forty-five minutes later, he received a phone call from Paul.

“He talked me through what it’s going to be like in New Orleans,” McCollum said. “He told me about Willie, their relationship, their friendship.”

Paul and Green went their separate ways after the 2010-11 season, but it did not take long for them to reunite. After his first season with the Clippers, Paul pushed them to trade for Green, and the team's decision-makers agreed.

“I was talking about building our team,” Paul said. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get Willie Green.’ We went and got Willie. Aside from Willie being a great basketball player, he was just someone you had to have in your locker room. And me personally, I needed him.”

Green was one of the few people who understood how badly Paul wanted to win. JJ Redick, who was part of the 2013-14 Clippers team, affectionately calls Paul a “sicko” for the lengths he goes to give himself an edge. Green said this characterization is accurate.

“I don’t like to share a lot of those details,” Green said. “But he is sick. The thing I love about Chris is he will do anything to have an advantage. Anything legally to have an advantage, he’ll do it. He went vegan, for crying out loud, just to extend his career.”

In June 2019, Paul excised animal products from his diet and began consuming only plant-based foods. He was coming off of a stint with the Houston Rockets in which injuries limited him to 58 regular-season games in two straight years. In the next two seasons, Paul played in 140 of a possible 144 regular-season games.

“You know how hard it is to go cold-turkey vegan?” Green said. “He did that. That’s his mindset. He will do anything it takes to be the best basketball player he can be.”

Last year, the Suns made a run to the NBA Finals with Paul at point guard, Williams as head coach and Green as Williams’ lead assistant. Their success helped Green receive consideration for head coaching jobs. In July, Green and the Pelicans came to terms on a handshake deal while the Finals were ongoing.

Green’s early success in New Orleans does not surprise Paul, who felt confident Green’s ability to relate to star players, end-of-bench guys and everyone in between would translate.

Green’s talent — as longtime NBA coach Doc Rivers put it in July, “to tell you the straight truth without offending you” — has also been useful.

The Pelicans were on the ropes in last week’s play-in tournament game in Los Angeles. The Clippers outscored the Pelicans 38-18 in the third quarter. Down 10 points entering the fourth quarter, Green demanded that his team fight.

“We ain’t giving it up,” Green said in the huddle. “We are not freaking giving this up. You’ve got to freaking fight. You’ve gotta fight.”

Paul had been on the receiving end of a similar speech once.

“Everybody is not always able to tell you what you need to hear,” Paul said. “Willie was always that guy for me.”

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