PHOENIX -- The photos started popping up on Chris Paul's phone a few days ago. The "memories" that smartphones like to remind us of, hoping they'll evoke enough nostalgia or perspective for a social media post.
Before the first NBA Finals game of his 16-year career, Paul's phone reminded him that one year ago to the day, the league and its players began traveling to the NBA bubble in Florida to complete their 2019-20 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's amazing to think all the things that have taken place since then," Paul said after scoring a game-high 32 points in the Phoenix Suns' 118-105 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Finals. "But I'm grateful for where I am now and happy to have this opportunity."
That's about as nostalgic and reminiscent as Paul is going to allow himself to get during these Finals. He has come so far, and experienced too much, to let any of the emotions that surely must be welling up inside him right now overwhelm or distract him.
Let NBA commissioner Adam Silver be the one to remind everyone how integral Paul was to restarting the league last year.
"It seems like almost poetic justice," Silver said before the game, "that Chris Paul, as president of the players' association, someone I was on the phone with at least once a week since March 11 of 2020, is here in the Finals."
Let his coach, Monty Williams, talk about how much they've both grown since their early days together in New Orleans.
"Back then, I was probably more forceful with calling plays," Williams said. "Now, he'll read the game ... and I'll be like, 'You call it.'
"Every so often, he'll look over to me and he'll squint, and I'll know he's wanting a play, and then I'll call it. That's the relationship we have built over being together twice, and being in this situation with him, I think there's a trust there."
Let his teammate Devin Booker wax poetic about his legacy and impact on this Suns playoff run.
"Anybody that counted Chris Paul out," Booker said, "you can't ever count any guy out that has done the things that he's done on the court. So, if I hear things like that, which I did, I take it as complete nonsense. If he doesn't play another game for us, you can still pay him his contract. His effect is that big, you know what I'm saying?
"He moves this team, he leads this team daily. Just having him in the locker room, I'm not even talking about anything he does on the court, he takes the team to that next level."
These Finals are set up to be Paul's coronation. The long-awaited ring that validates what has been one of the most impactful NBA careers of the past two decades.
You don't think the Point God knows all of that?
This is a man who was watching the Stanley Cup Final and the Euro 2020 tournament the other day, looking at the different angles hockey and soccer players slip passes through and trying to extrapolate whether that could apply to basketball.
He sees everything.
But age and experience have taught him how to regulate what images and moments he lets in.
"I'm just so locked into the game I ain't really paying attention to much," Paul, 36, explained. "Just trying to stay in the moment."
Paul has seen more in his Hall of Fame career than almost anyone of his generation. He has been involved in some of the most impactful moments in the league over the past two decades. From his rookie year in Oklahoma City, after the New Orleans Hornets were forced to relocate for a year following Hurricane Katrina. To the 2011 trade to the Los Angeles Lakers, which was undone by former commissioner David Stern, then redone by the LA Clippers. Then he was front and center for the Donald Sterling scandal that shook the NBA to its core. There were the tumultuous Houston years, his trade back to Oklahoma City and last year -- before and after the bubble.
There are images from all of those moments all over his phone and in his mind.
But the key for Paul in this series is to keep the vestiges of his past from distracting his future so he can keep having performances like he did in Game 1, when he became only the third player -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (twice) and Tim Duncan -- age 36 or older to score 30 points on 60% shooting in a Finals game.
"It may be the experience, the heartbreak, the tough losses," Paul told ESPN's Scott Van Pelt afterward. "Understanding that it's not over 'til it's over, it's just one game. We here at home, we're supposed to win at home. Game 2 is the biggest game of the season right now. With me, it's just staying the course and making sure my guys stay locked in."