Chris Paul cheated on his Clippers eye test until he got LASIK
Chris Paul is one of the purest point guards in recent memory, a floor general with a preternatural feel for tempo control and how to get the ball to his teammates in just the right spots. However, it appears that the Los Angeles Clippers star depended on that feel for the game more than necessary up until this season.
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According to Paul himself, the eight-time All-NBA selection had trouble with his vision until getting LASIK surgery this summer. That means he cheated on his eye exam, as well. From Dan Woike for The Orange County Register:
He recited the 20/25 and 20/20 lines on the eye chart in rapid succession. He didn’t pause to squint. He didn’t strain a single muscle on his face. […]
There was a small catch, though. Paul wasn’t reading from anything at all. There wasn’t an eye chart inside the Clippers practice facility.
He’d memorized the 15 letters, maybe in an effort to convince eye doctors he didn’t need to correct his vision. […]
Six months later, he’s reading the fine print on water bottles 10 feet away. He’s reading street signs at night. And, in what might not be a coincidence, Paul is above his career numbers in every shooting category and making 3-pointers and free throws at a rate better than he had in his 11 previous NBA seasons. […]
“As long as I could see the rim,” he said, “I felt like I was cool.” […]
“Everyone used to tell me I squinted on the court,” Paul said. “Like when (Coach) Doc (Rivers) was trying to get my attention to call a play, they’d say I squinted all the time.”
Maybe we have finally found the long-sought answer to DeAndre Jordan’s free-throw woes. He just needs eye surgery!
In truth, the impact of LASIK on CP3’s shooting is probably overstated. While Paul is still having a very good shooting season, Wednesday night’s performance in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies brought his field-goal percentage and two-point percentage below his career averages. The vast majority of those misses are coming from inside 16 feet, and Paul is indeed putting up much improved numbers from the mid-range and especially on three-pointers (45.8 percent compared to 36.7 percent for his career). Nevertheless, it’s hard to know if these numbers are the result of a 12-game sample size. For example, Paul shot better from the free-throw line last season than he is right now. Did getting LASIK really make him worse from the stripe but better elsewhere?
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That’s why the biggest takeaway from this story is that Chris Paul cheats on his eye exams. Yes, he says he did it because he was scared of having surgery on (or regularly sticking plastic discs into) his eyes. That’s an understandable position — it took me plenty of time to get comfortable with contacts. But at least be honest with what you can do. It’s not like the Clippers were going to trick their best player into getting eye surgery.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
