There is a longer list of the names of outstanding American basketball professionals who all ended their careers with a minor blemish.

They had done their best and struggled for years, but still never won the NBA championship.

With such a scratch in the paintwork, in the United States they automatically rank second as far as legend goes.

Even contributors to the 1992 dream team, the best basketball ensemble in history, such as Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and John Stockton.

A career record like this hardly ever has anything to do with the performance of the star players in question. But rather with the expertise of club managers in the background, who are responsible for putting together successful squads. The most recent example: Chris Paul, who is believed to be the best development player in recent years, a member of the American national team that won gold at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. He is now 36 years old, shaped by sixteen years of NBA experience, with comparatively modest play-off results.

The best and most depressing experience was not that long ago.

He was in the semifinals with the Houston Rockets in May 2018, suffered a thigh injury and had to watch as his teammates gambled away the lead in the series against the Golden State Warriors and were eliminated without him.

More than a vagabond

His career, which began in 2005 with the New Orleans Hornets and brought him to the Phoenix Suns via the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, only at first glance seems like a classic vagabond story with numerous and unsatisfactory club changes.

If you take a closer look, you can see a successful businessman who knows how to sell himself and his skills at high prices.

When Paul negotiated his last four-year contract in Houston in 2018 for a total guaranteed sum of $ 159 million, he confirmed his rank as one of the highest earners in the league.

Its reputation among professional colleagues is also of the very highest quality.

Paul has been president of the players 'union since 2013 and has used his influence during this time to get rid of a managing director on suspicion of corruption and instead install a woman in this position who has proven herself to be the advocate of the players' interests.

His boycott threats in connection with former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who had been outed as a racist, forced the league to act.

The NBA forced Sterling to sell the club.

Sporty high in the repair shop

Most recently, even sporting fate turned for the better. Because what looked like it was going to end up in a repair shop in November during the exchange that passed him on from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Phoenix Suns, turned out to be a real stroke of luck over the course of the season.

The team, which had not even reached the play-offs a year ago, qualified in the spring with the second best season record of all teams and 51:21 wins for the round of the last sixteen, clearing the champions Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers one after the other and the Los Angeles Clippers out of the way, also made a strong impression in the final series, the first ever for Paul, against the Milwaukee Bucks and was open before the fourth game of the Best-of-Seven series (3:00 a.m. CEST that night Thursday) 2-1 ahead.

The main people responsible for the development of the Suns: Paul and trainer Monty Williams, who had both worked together very harmoniously in New Orleans. Of course, it helps when a team with Devin Booker has a formidable basket shooter. And with a Deandre Ayton an assertive rebounder. At her side, Paul was able to revive a nickname: the somewhat daring allusion to the position as point guard.

He is called the "Point God" because, equipped with seemingly supernatural powers, he often plays the ball exactly where his neighbors appear only a fraction of a second later. Incidentally, Paul, who is relatively short at 1.88 meters, is still one of the few NBA professionals who single-handedly produce a lot of baskets when dribbling through the rows of defenders. Career average: 18.3 points per game.

For a while now, his statistical values ​​have been pointing up again. In his own estimation, his longevity has to do with the fact that he switched his eating habits to a completely vegan diet in 2019. And so Paul will negotiate a new contract in the next few weeks with a view to three, if not four more years. The salary is unlikely to depend on whether the Suns win the title or not. It will definitely be one of the top salaries in the league. Rumor has it more than $ 30 million per season.