Karalis: A few thoughts from around the leauge, including Chris Paul to Boston

The Celtics season is over but the rest of the NBA continues to churn on and make news that interests Celtics fans. Here’s my take on a few of those stories. 

CHRIS PAUL OUT IN PHOENIX?

The first I saw of this story was the photoshops shared on Twitter of Paul in a Celtics jersey. 

CP3 could be on his way out of Phoenix. So naturally there's a fascination with adding a legendary player, even at the tail end of his career. Unfortunately, the odds are slim. They're not zero, though. 

So let’s start with the trade route. Trading for Paul would guarantee his $30.8 million salary, so that's a non-starter. The Celtics aren’t a supertax team right now, so the punitive limitations on trades and signings won’t be an issue to start the new CBA, but even using Brogdon and another salary to bring Paul in seems like a short-sighted move based on Paul’s injury history. 

One financial reason to actually make the trade is that his $30 million next year is non-guaranteed so it would be an easy way to save money next season without losing a critical core player. 

The Celtics could sign him. The taxpayer mid-level exception is still at their disposal, even though it hard caps them at the supertax line. Boston is $11.4 million short of that without re-signing Grant Williams. They could get both done and make some cost-saving moves around the edges if they wanted. 

Of course, all of this posits Paul will actually want to come to Boston. While it would give him a good chance at winning a championship, his family is based in Los Angeles, so he probably would run down some better options for him before going to the team furthest away from everyone he loves. 

Should Boston do it? If he wants to come here and if the price is right for him to act as mentor and play 15-20 minutes a game, then sure. His body can’t handle more than that at this point, but Chris Paul cracking his head open and pouring his knowledge into Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown would be a good thing. There's some value to doing it, but it remains incredibly unlikely. 

TATUM AND BROWN PLAYING OFF ONE ANOTHER

As we watch the NBA Finals, we see Denver winning because of how their stars play off of one another. 

Which of course begins a conversation about Boston … 

Okay, no matter what the context, that's a bad look for the Celtics. They need to play better than that. But it’s not as bad as it seems when you add the positional expectations of a guard and center working together in the pick and roll. Of course Jamal Murray is going to find Nikola Jokic a few times a game. It’s a natural connection and Jokic hits a ton of shots. 

Meanwhile, Jokic is one of the best passers we’ve ever seen, regardless of position. So he’ll find the best scorer on the team for his fair share of buckets. So the context of the numbers takes away some of the sting. 

But …

Ahhhh, now we’re in flavor country. If Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are assisting each other more than Tatum and Brown, then we’ve got a problem. 

Just 2.1 assists to one another is ridiculous. All that is is Tatum swinging the ball over once to Brown for a 3-pointer and then Brown doing the same for Tatum. There's no playing off one another at play at all. 

I’ve been begging the Celtics to run a pick and roll between those guys forever. I don’t care if defenses will just switch, put three shooters on the floor with them and slip the screen for an easy bucket. If they sniff that out, then reverse the screen from Tatum and let Brown walk into a clean 15-footer. 

They don’t have to be John Stockton and Karl Malone, they just have to be good at it for a few plays a game. And they don’t even have to run the traditional pick and roll. They can run off-ball action together, set pin-downs and flare screens and force defenses to make decisions that will ultimately go wrong because two guys will inevitably see Tatum and freak out. 

Those guys need to play off each other more often, especially late in games in the playoffs. When things stall, those two guys playing off one another has to be a go-to instead of them taking turns and isolating.

I can’t be crazy for thinking this. I don’t understand why no Celtics coaches have tried it. 

STING OF MIAMI LOSS WEARING OFF? 

People have joked that I have reached the acceptance part of the grieving process by saying this, but maybe the loss to Miami wasn’t quite as bad as we made it out to be? 

Let me just stop you from running to the comments section right now by saying none of what I’m about to say minimizes the issues Boston faces or the mistakes they made. None of that changes. 

What I am saying is Boston still had a chance to win despite all that if Miami had just had some normal performances from guys who continue to be on ridiculous heaters. Miami has been getting the same shots all playoffs long, and they’ve been winning with insane outlier shooting performances.

Miami taking that game in Denver and nearly coming back last night just shows that they might have had more of a hand in winning these series than we give them credit for. We obviously look at everything through a home-centric lens, but Miami has been able to slow other teams down in the fourth quarter all playoffs long. Yes, Boston bought into it a little too eagerly, but also Miami making shots allowed them to set up that full court zone press. 

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Not much changes as far as what Boston could and should have done differently, but maybe I just didn’t give Miami enough credit for doing what they did along the way.