Excitement and agony are the two feelings that described Chris Paul and Kemba Walker's start of the 2020-21 pre-season. While Paul marked his first day in the Phoenix Suns gym Wednesday, Walker is unlikely to start the season until January 2021 due to a troublesome knee.
On Wednesday, Paul was speaking to media for the first time since he was traded to the Suns.
"Everyone always talks about like what I can teach Book or what I can teach some of these other guys, but they're teaching me at the same time, too. I'm not James Naismith by no means. I'm their teammate, too. We here to hoop, we here to compete, and that's the way I approach this," Paul said.
Since the pandemic induced hiatus and return last season, Paul's hands have been full as the president of the executive committee of the NBA Players' Association, but he knows he has a new job at hand at Phoenix.
"The one thing about my approach, and I'm not saying that it's always right and it's not for everybody, but I'll never ask you to do something that I wouldn't do myself," said Paul. Much of what he said was how the story of his season at Oklahoma City was defined.
"The biggest thing I learned last year is you can write your own story. We didn't care about any of y'all's predictions. Sometimes it's nice to have a young team because they don't know anything else but to hoop and to play hard," he said.
In stark contrast to Paul's energy, Walker is taking it slow, rightly so.
"There's no rush on my end. I'm coming back when I need to come back and when I'm feeling good to play," Walker said.
Boston Celtics need Walker to return at his best especially with Gordon Hayward signing a four-year, USD 120 million contract with the Charlotte Hornets, Walker's previous employers.
When asked if he was upset with Hornets offering big-money to Hayward, Walker said he couldn't care less. "I made my choice to come here to Boston because this is where I wanted to be because it makes me happy. And, he's happy. I'm sure he's happy. He's going to have a great time in Charlotte," concluded Walker.
( With inputs from ANI )
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