Chris Paul with another act of kindness

[Weeks]

So far in the playoffs I've already heard two things that make me like Chris Paul more everyday.

1) when Trey Johnson (Lakers) was trying out for the Hornets in the summer, CP3 let him stay at his house.

2) Brad Rhoades, a kid from New Hamsphire, mom died in a snowmobile accident. Brad then went and scored 46 points in his basketball game to honor his mom, like chris did when he was a kid and his grandpa died at 61. CP3 then flew Brad out to New Orleans gave him a pair of his shoes and signed them, gave him a jersey, tickets to the game, and let him shoot around with him on Hornet court.

I have a so much respect for him.

[da ThRONe]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

So far in the playoffs I've already heard two things that make me like Chris Paul more everyday.

1) when Trey Johnson (Lakers) was trying out for the Hornets in the summer, CP3 let him stay at his house.

2) Brad Rhoades, a kid from New Hamsphire, mom died in a snowmobile accident. Brad then went and scored 46 points in his basketball game to honor his mom, like chris did when he was a kid and his grandpa died at 61. CP3 then flew Brad out to New Orleans gave him a pair of his shoes and signed them, gave him a jersey, tickets to the game, and let him shoot around with him on Hornet court.

I have a so much respect for him.

I was fortune enough to have met Chris before super cool. One of the nicest pro athletes ever. I don't believe celebs/athletes should be role models but if you had to pick one you can't go wrong with Chris.

[Chrisksaint]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Indeed Chris Paul does so much stuff like this and all kinds of stuff for the community of New Orleans whether it's his charities, events,etc. It's almost impossible to hate a guy like this imo.

[RuckusUnder]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Chris Paul is one of the very few true role models in the NBA. Polite, clean, and not a manwhore (or at least I don't think). Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Derrick Rose, and Kevin Durant would make good role models too.

[jeebs9]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

^^ Totally agree ^^

Guys like that are people I would love kids to follow.

[Boge]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Anyone that kids look up to are role models whether they like it or not. It's the adults responsibility to be a good one.

[wwharton]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Anyone that kids look up to are role models whether they like it or not. It's the adults responsibility to be a good one.

I disagree with this. It's the parents' responsibility to give their kids perspective. If you're going to look up to a Tiger Woods, point to his work ethic, ability to be clutch, etc. As an adult, your responsibility is to you and yours. EVERY adult has the potential to be a role model to someone interested in following their path (whether a career or just way of approaching life). It'd be nice if every adult worked on being a good one, but it doesn't make sense to judge the ones that don't. Be a good one yourself and teach your kids how to sort it all out (the "your" isn't directed at you, of course).

[blackflash83]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

I disagree with this. It's the parents' responsibility to give their kids perspective. If you're going to look up to a Tiger Woods, point to his work ethic, ability to be clutch, etc. As an adult, your responsibility is to you and yours. EVERY adult has the potential to be a role model to someone interested in following their path (whether a career or just way of approaching life). It'd be nice if every adult worked on being a good one, but it doesn't make sense to judge the ones that don't. Be a good one yourself and teach your kids how to sort it all out (the "your" isn't directed at you, of course).

Agreed wholeheartedly. I am a firm believer that a kid's role model should be someone close to home like a parent, grandparent, older sibling or cousin, aunt, uncle or a teacher. If a kid looks to a pro athlete (who I don't think should be the case) they should look at their work ethic and not their personality.

If the kid's role model isn't someone close to home then there's a serious problem that should be addressed.

[Chrisksaint]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Depends what you consider a role model, I never really considered my parents to be role models I considered them just that my parents they are already supposed to point me in the right direction, set examples,etc.

If I have a kid and he tells me an athlete with the personality of a Brees or CP3,etc was his role model I'd have no problem at all with it

[Colts18]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

I disagree with this. It's the parents' responsibility to give their kids perspective. If you're going to look up to a Tiger Woods, point to his work ethic, ability to be clutch, etc. As an adult, your responsibility is to you and yours. EVERY adult has the potential to be a role model to someone interested in following their path (whether a career or just way of approaching life). It'd be nice if every adult worked on being a good one, but it doesn't make sense to judge the ones that don't. Be a good one yourself and teach your kids how to sort it all out (the "your" isn't directed at you, of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOebyD_KsCE

[wwharton]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

Depends what you consider a role model, I never really considered my parents to be role models I considered them just that my parents they are already supposed to point me in the right direction, set examples,etc.

If I have a kid and he tells me an athlete with the personality of a Brees or CP3,etc was his role model I'd have no problem at all with it

That's bc they have qualities off the court/field that you, as a knowledgeable adult, know are good. You're still, as a parent, influencing the child's decision. The idea that it's on the athletes to do the right thing bc these kids want to look up to them is what I disagree with. I think it's great that some athletes embrace the role or are just naturally good people, but the parents should be the ones teaching the kids which ones they are. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with a kid admiring a T.O., Kobe, Tiger, etc. as long as they have someone showing them what's worth admiring about them and what's not.

[Weeks]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

The lessons of Nathaniel Jones

On the moonless night of Nov. 15, 2002, five young boys ran across a park, jumped a 61-year-old man, bound his wrists, duct-taped his mouth, and beat him with pipes until his heart stopped.

All for his wallet.

That man was Nathaniel Jones, the grandfather of future NBA star Chris Paul.

Today, those boys are men, sitting in prisons across the state of North Carolina, some serving 14-year terms, some life. On the TV sets in their prison rec rooms this week, the Hornets point guard has been wrecking the Los Angeles Lakers, averaging nearly a triple-double, the shiniest star of these playoffs.

The five are all about the same age as Paul, same race, same height, and from the same hometown.

They have one other thing in common with Chris Paul: All six wish they were free.

It's something Paul told me during a "Homecoming" episode once on ESPN, and every time I watch him play I can't get it out of my mind. Paul, now 25, said: "These guys were 14 and 15 years old [at the time], with a lot of life ahead of them. I wish I could talk to them and tell them, 'I forgive you. Honestly.' I hate to know that they're going to be in jail for such a long time. I hate it."

Who's heart has that much room?

"Chris Paul hates it?" says Geneva Bryant, the mother of one of the five, Christopher Bryant. "Well, so do I. My boy is 23 now. He's been in since he was 15."

Her son has six years to go. Dorrell Brayboy, 23, has six years to go. Jermal Tolliver, 23, has seven. Two brothers -- Nathaniel Cauthen, 24, and Rayshawn Banner, 23 -- are in until they die.

Paul's attitude stuns one of the defense attorneys who appealed the verdict and lost.

"I've probably tried 30 homicide cases," says Paul Herzog, of Fayetteville. "It's very rare for a family survivor in a murder case to feel that way. You just don't see that ever. That's incredibly generous of Mr. Paul."

To understand how generous, you have to know how close Paul was to his granddad.

The man everybody called "PaPa Chili" was the first black man to open a service station in North Carolina and both Chris and his brother worked at it. PaPa Chili was known to let people run tabs when times got tough. Plenty of times, he'd hand people money out of the cash register to get by. Paul called him "my best friend."

The day Paul signed with nearby Wake Forest, the first person to put a Demon Deacons hat on him was his grandfather.

The next day, he was dead.

None of the five boys were particularly hardened criminals. Only Cauthen had been previously arrested -- twice for running away and once for stealing his mom's car. They decided they wanted to rob somebody. Around the corner, in his white van, came that somebody -- Jones. He'd closed the filling station and was now getting grocery bags out of his van. "Let's go get him," one of them said. They sprinted across Belview Park and jumped him.

Using tape they'd bought that day at a drugstore, they bound his head, neck and hands and began a "relentless, remorseless, conscienceless" attack, according to the judge who sentenced them. Jones died in his carport.

Paul, a high school senior, was so woebegone he was literally sick. Two days later, he scored 61 points for West Forsyth High School, one for every year of Papa Chili's life. He purposely missed a free throw at the end, then collapsed into the arms of his father in tears.

His grief was bottomless. Every national anthem in college, he'd hold his grandfather's laminated obituary in his hand and pray.

And now he wants the murderers set free?

"Even though I miss my granddad," Paul told me, "I understand that he's not coming back. At the time, it made me feel good when I heard they went away for life. But now that I'm older, when I think of all the things I've seen in my life? No, I don't want it. I don't want it."

This is the kind of man Chris Paul is: He was president of his high school class all three years. When LeBron James' girlfriend had a baby, James made sure Paul was there. He's so humble that if you didn't know who he was, you'd swear he was the pool man.

So what can Paul do?

He can appeal to the governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, and ask for their sentences to be commuted. North Carolina is not big on commuting murderers' sentences, but I'd put nothing past the powers of Paul.

This kid floors me. Not just with the way he can dominate an NBA playoff game at 6 feet tall in elevator sneakers. Not just for the way he can twist Kobe Bryant into a Crazy Straw. Not just for the way he'd rather pass through a doughnut hole than take the shot himself.

No, what floors me about Chris Paul is his humanity. If strangers had bound my weak-hearted grandfather, beat him for no reason and killed him for the cash in his wallet -- strangers who to this day have not shown a thimbleful of contrition -- I'd want them in prison 100 years after they were in the dirt.

Chris Paul once wrote that his grandfather "taught me more things than I could ever learn with a Ph.D."

One of them must've been love.

[da ThRONe]

Re: Chris Paul with another act of kindness

The lessons of Nathaniel Jones

Really great dude.