Taking on the world

NEW YORK – Chris Paul knows what the inside of a VIP room looks like.

When you’re a rising NBA star with a magazine-ready smile, you get used to being ushered into private rooms at hot night spots.

The former Wake Forest and ACC standout finished second in the NBA MVP balloting in his third season with the New Orleans Hornets, but even Paul feels the zing of being invited to the USA Basketball party that will rage at the 2008 Beijing Olympics starting Aug. 10.

“One of my friends said it best when he told me this is the best team I will ever play on,” Paul said about setting up baskets for Kobe Bryant and LeBron James on the U.S. Olympic team.

Paul, 23, first played for the United States in college at the 2004 World Championship for Young Men Qualifying tournament. He led all players in assists (31) and three-point shooting (63.6 percent) to help the United States win a gold medal.

Paul made his first senior team for the 2006 World Championships in Japan after his NBA Rookie of the Year season.

He and Chicago Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich ran the offense in Japan but labored while adjusting to the bumping and shoving in the backcourt allowed by international officials – more than what is allowed in the NBA.

Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Kidd and Utah’s Deron Williams, both physically bigger than Paul and Hinrich, were added to the national roster in 2007 to address that.

Paul said experiencing that bronze-medal run in Japan keyed his quick rise in the NBA and prepped him for Beijing.

“Hopefully you’re not so bug-eyed and not knowing what to expect in China,” he said. “You understand your role better.”

Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio said Paul has always been a quick study, devouring the basketball world in two-year gulps: Playing JV ball as a West Forsyth High junior in Clemmons, N.C., winning the ACC Rookie of the Year award two years later at Wake, the NBA Rookie of the Year award two years after that, and finishing second in the MVP balloting two years after that.

“He may be one of the best five players in the world right now,” said Gaudio, who was an assistant under the late Skip Prosser when Paul played at Wake.

“He has something other greats have – a presence and charisma that allows him to say what he needs to say without others being, and I don’t know if this is the right word, offended or insulted.”

Paul has always been the younger guy leading the older ones so he had to mature quickly. He did during his second and final year at Wake Forest.

That season was supposed to be a big one for the Demon Deacons. In many ways – Wake earned a No. 2 seed in the 2005 NCAA tournament – it was.

In others, it was not. Against North Carolina State at the end of the ACC season, Paul hit State guard Julius Hodge with a stealth jab to the groin.

After making a running 10-footer to win that game, then apologizing to Hodge, Paul sat out a one-game suspension in the first-round of the ACC tournament.

N.C. State beat Wake Forest in the tournament. West Virginia then beat the Demon Deacons 111-105 in double overtime in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Gaudio said Paul, 19 at the time, took that loss as hard as anyone.

Still Paul didn’t look back.

“This will be my 28th season in coaching and a Chris Paul comes along maybe once every 25 years,” Gaudio said.

The Hornets picked Paul with the fourth overall selection in the NBA Draft that year. In just his third season in 2007-08, after averaging 21.1 points and 11.6 assists, Paul finished a close second to Bryant in theMVP race.

“It happened pretty quick,” Paul said of his career ascent. “But when I think back to all the times I was in the gym working, this really shows it paid off. It’s not just like one day I woke up and got the opportunity.”

USA managing director Jerry Colangelo wanted Paul on the national team starting in 2006 to prepare him for a USA Basketball future. Colangelo said Paul’s future came a lot quicker than expected.

Paul will back up Kidd at the point in Beijing, and often share the backcourt with Williams, who was picked one spot ahead of him in the 2005 NBA Draft.

Paul led the Hornets to a first-round NBA playoff victory over Kidd’s Dallas team, outplaying Kidd along the way. Kidd said Paul will see in Beijing that the world is his for the taking.

“Because of his character, Chris won’t rest on what he’s already done,” Kidd said. “And maybe you also have to look at the friendly competition between him and Deron. Those guys are the two carrying the torch of the best point guards in the league right now.”

Push beyond Paul’s excitement and he’ll say he’s ready. He knows what pushes his buttons, and said it’s the same thing that does it for his U.S. teammates.

“The one thing about Team USA is that we hate to lose,” Paul said.

“We’d hate to lose the gold more than we’d like to win it.”

Paul says that’s why he willingly risks injury and his NBA career for a shot at Olympic glory.

“Why not?” he said. “I love the game. I also love competition. I could get hurt walking from here to the next interview. You have to take chances. If playing basketball is taking a chance, then that’s the one I’ll take every day.”