Hornets Hype

This is just to spread the word. What’s it all about?

On Tuesday, Chris Paul turns 23 years old. And by Tuesday, Kobe Bryant will probably have won his first Most Valuable Player Award. But this day isn’t about griping over MVP trophies or anything like that. Tuesday, May 6^th will simply be a celebration of the season Chris Paul has had and what he means to the future of this league.

We will be participating here, and I think it’s a great idea. Even if CP3 doesn’t get MVP, it’s important not to forget that he’s had a historic season. And it’s just a nice added bonus that his birthday’s coming up. So I encourage everyone with a blog to blog about Chris Paul next Tuesday! Everyone on the internet’s doing it. It’s the cool thing to do.

Go to At the Hive to sign up!

OK, so Sunday night on the postgame press conference, Chris Paul said he wants to see the arena in GOLD.

This is gonna be one of those moments when I’m going to bitch about the Hornets organization. I love ‘em, but… remember how I said we needed to organize the fans better? This is a prime example. OK, scratch that. Except the part about loving the Hornets. See the bottom of the post for an explanation.

Because the players said they wanted gold. Tyson just said it again on his blog today. And CP3’s quote was in the paper, but people might have missed that. Yet… the giveaway tonight is thunderstix. Now I’m not saying it’s reasonable to get 20,000 t-shirts printed on short notice because the players want gold and not teal, but… you know, they could have sent around an email or posted something on the site telling people definitively what to wear. Complicating the issue is the fact that the “Fan Up New Orleans!” shirts are teal. And the previous giveaway was black. And prior to that, white. See the problem? People are not gonna wear the gold gear if they don’t have any (unless you want to see a sea of LSU), and people are not gonna wear a solid color at all unless it’s splashed all over town that they’re supposed to. I think whenever they do t-shirts they should put them on the seats so people realize they have to put one on.

So. Will the fans pull this together to look impressive tonight?

I’m gonna go with, “Ha. No.”

At least we can yell.

Update: I’m told (check out the comments) that CP surprised everyone with that remark, and the staff was scrambling around looking for 18,000 gold shirts on short notice. So… I apologize for the criticism. At least they tried! SO. What to wear? I’m going to wear my teal TC #6 jersey over yellow, and call it a compromise.

No, seriously. I challenge you.

That was nothing less than a masterful ass-kicking from start to finish. I think most Hornets fans were concerned about the fact that, going back to the last 10 games before the playoffs started, we haven’t seen consistent play throughout four quarters. Well, we saw what it looks like tonight.

It cannot be stopped.

Chris Paul. Again. 32 and 17 with 5 rebounds and 3 steals. Five other Hornets in double digits. West knocking down 11 of 17 (damn, it didn’t seem like he missed that many). And seriously? Did they watch the tape on West? How was he left alone for those couple of mid-range jumpers? Peja is just dirty. No, dirty. That shot where he waits… waits… and then after the defender flies across him and into the crowd, just sloooowwwly goes up and buries the dagger.

Giant Peja heads on sticks: whatever drugs the Hornets’ staff were on when they came up with that idea, I want in. In the 4th Quarter there was actually what resembled a Native American dance of sorts at center court with the Peja heads. To the tune of “Shout!” You can’t make this stuff up.

2-0. This thing is rolling. There’s still room on the wagon. Get on it now.

HypeMeter: The press conference is on NBATV right now. I laughed out loud at the question that was just asked of Byron Scott. “Coach, is there any way to defend your team when you look like that on offense?” LOL again at CP3 and D West coming in together, joking back and forth the whole way. “No, no, they said Haier, like the commercial, but I thought they were saying ‘on fire’…” (I have no idea what this conversation was about or where it started, but it was funny.)

This is for all the folks who keep getting here by Googling the search term “How tall is Chris Paul?” or other variants thereof.

I offer you this answer:

Taller than me, y’all. Taller than me.

Or here, I’ll be more helpful. I’m 5′6. The heels on my shoes are roughly 3 inches high. But my head is slightly tilted. So you know, like, you do the math.

Or I could be even more helpful and tell you that Chris Paul is listed as 6′0. But in actuality he’s probably 5′11.

Yes. You can now feel free to bow to his greatness.

And that’s my public service for the day. (Man, I am shameless when it comes to putting up that picture. That was totally gratuitous. You got me.)

So here’s how it happens.

I’m in Tampa at a dinner, and I keep texting for the score. The Hornets are down by 12 at the half. The next time it’s 6. Five minutes later it’s 5. The last time I check it’s 68-65. I leave to go watch the rest of the game in the hotel bar. On the way I get a message from mW. It just says, “Wow… Go Hornets!”

And I know. I just know.

I walk up to the bar, and there in ESPN HD, the first thing I hear is, “Chris Paul has taken over this game.” New Orleans has a six-point lead.

Someone says, “There are still 9 minutes left.”

I said, “You know how many times this season the Hornets have come from behind in the second half at home and then given up the lead? Never.”

And I watch as he smokes a double team, weaves around a third defender, and takes it effortlessly right up the middle to the basket, like a dancer. And I listen as the commentating on this game stops being about Dirk Nowitzki, or Jason Kidd, or about the Mavs at all. With 35 points, 10 assists, 4 steals, and only one turnover, the “MVP!” chants thundering down, Chris Paul has said an emphatic, “Hell no. This is my party.”

It is a gorgeous thing to watch.

NBA Playoffs, meet Chris Paul.

CP3 HypeMeter: Paul finds his groove in winning playoff debut, Paul trumps experience in playoff debut. But SI gives a little bit of hate.

In case you missed it, it was hilarious. Chris Paul, man… always says the right thing. And he’s so young. How lucky are the Hornets? No, seriously. How lucky? Interview also features D-West, Hilton Armstrong, Julian Wright, Rasual Butler, and Ryan Bowen goofing off in the first row, like they’ve never been on TV before.

I love the Hornets.

HornetsHype would like to send a shout out of congrats to Mr. Chris Paul, the MVP man himself, for displaying mad spelling prowess on top of his considerable balling skills.

They just did the “Year in Review” on Hornets Tonight, and they ran clips from the interviews CST has done with the players over the course of the season. Some funny, funny stuff there. The last question they always ask is, “If your car broke down and you had to call for help and spell the name of the street… how do you spell Tchoupitoulas?” I haven’t seen anyone get it right all season. Most of them just laugh and don’t even try. Or they go, “C-H-O-P-A… uh… T… uh… U-S?” Even the management staff couldn’t get it.

I gotta give Chris Paul a shout-out here. Surprisingly, he beat everyone else, only missing by one letter when he left out the second “U.” Nice spelling, CP3!

(Of course, out of all the Hornets, Chris Paul probably should have the best chance at knowing how to spell Tchoupitoulas Street, since he actually lives in the CBD.)

P.S. “The Crescent City Connection” is totally a better name for the CP-TC alley oop than the Big Easy, and I am endorsing its use here. Little bit of local color there! (For out of towners: The Crescent City Connection is the toll bridge connecting the East & West banks of the Mississippi. As in, “As I drove home over the Crescent City Connection, I daydreamed about all those flashy Crescent City Connections the Hornets were going to put up on the T-Wolves in the 1st quarter.” See how nice that works.)

Not that we haven’t had our own version for months, but at the Golden State game on Sunday, everyone at the arena is going to get a CP MVP shirt! And the game’s nationally televised on ABC.

That place is going to look amazing.

And our Hornets are finally back on Friday.

BEST. WEEKEND. EVER.

….

Oh, and by the way, people keep telling me how awesome it was at the airport last night. Melvin Ely, Jannero Pargo, AND Chris Paul getting out and taking pics and signing autographs? I almost died this morning when I saw what we missed. I swear I will go every single time for the rest of the season. Believe me, I so wanted to go. And I get up at 5:30 AM every day of the week. It took an official evaluation BY THE STATE OF LOUISIANA at work today to keep me from going last night. Otherwise, to hell with 5 AM, I’d have been so there.

Damn you, State of Louisiana. Just kidding.

You know it. ‘Cause I have 5 hours left of work before I’m off on vacation for 11 days.

I. Can’t. Wait.

90-69. Hornets let their second half game do the talking. Well, CP3 did some talking too.

“Tracy McGrady is a great player. If I was Rafer Alston I’d probably ride his coattails too.”

“I feel like you can make a statement with the way you play. But some guys like Rafer Alston like to run their mouth … that just added fuel to our fire tonight. D-West, that’s my guy. For him to say he’s not a star, I mean let’s see what All-Star Game he’s played in.”

“When you got somebody like Rafer Alston who thinks they’re a lot better than they really are, you gotta test them.”

HA! Some might say he should just play, and not bother with lesser players like Alston. I say, he’s the leader of the team. The last game he got into it because Tyson and Alston were having words after the game. This time he has D-West’s back all the way.

The way I see it, he didn’t start shit. He just finished it.

And look, ESPN Love! Don’t Mess With the Hornets!

This is why ESPN.com will never have a chance at removal from the Shitlist. They have a scary ability to swing from bandwagon to bandwagon in a matter of days. Pure media schizophrenia, that is.

To wit,

The Weekend Dime. In which Marc Stein ranked “the top five story lines of the NBA season.” What were they?

1) Blockbuster trades (OK, fine, that one won’t kill me)

2) Dominance of the Western Conference (’cause this has never happened before)

3) Boston Celtics (I’m OK with this one)

4) Rockets streak (which, while impressive, has been a story line of the last one month, and the last time I checked, one month was not the season… FAIL)

5) Kobe Vs. LeBron. (NO. NO. NO. Absurd.)

For several reasons, the greatest of which is that Kobe vs. LeBron is basically a self-perpetuating delusion foisted upon us by the very media members who then go and write articles about how big a story the story they made up is. Anyone notice how about two weeks ago, it was a race between four guys– Kobe, LeBron, KG, and Chris Paul? And then… what? It was like all the big media guys got together and decided it was Kobe and LeBron. Did anything change to drop the other two out, like, oh I don’t know, actual statistics or perhaps these real things called games that are going on all the time? No. It was like the media gave its blessing and we were all supposed to fall in line, frothing at the mouth over the “battle.” The problem is, it feels like a manufactured battle. That’s because it is.

Then, in the sidebar, we get a picture of Chris Paul and this lovely bit of snark.

How big has this NBA season been? So large that Chris Paul, his can-do Hornets and the NBA All-Star Game still can’t get New Orleans into Stein’s top five stories of the season.

I don’t know, it seems like SINCE HE WROTE THE TOP 5, he could have put whatever he wanted in there. Don’t go acting like it’s the Hornets’ fault for not making your dubious top five. You could have made it less dubious had you chosen to.

Well. The problem with everyone getting together and deciding the Hornets are out?

Somebody forgot to tell Chris Paul.

No, really. That game last night? Incredible. CP3’s stats over the last several games? Incredible. And so this week we get this spurt of articles that are like, “Wait. Wait. Wait. Chris Paul is also making a case.” Like he hasn’t been all along. Like anything he’s done has changed. Today on ESPN, for example, Chris Broussard makes a case for Chris Paul.

Whatev, ESPN and co. We don’t need your blessing for our MVP candidate.

You want to say he’s back in? Fine. But remember, you were the ones to take him out.

We were the ones who knew it was him all along.