Secret tunnels, the NBA, and Boy Scouts

I aspire to know about something the same way that Chris Paul knows about the intricacies of the Staples Center in Los Angeles. You see, it’s truly inspiring that Paul, now with the Houston Rockets and formerly with the Los Angeles Clippers, truly knows the Staples Center like the back of his hand.

After the Rockets lost to the Clippers for the second time this season (in a game that was largely influenced by discrepancies in refereeing, I promise I’m not too bitter), Paul took his floor general title from the hardwood and moved it off the court, leading his team into battle.

The first stage of the plan was simple.

They needed a diversion.

23 year old Clint Capela, a 6-10 native of Switzerland known for this beautiful cover of Frozen’s “Let it Go,” was perfect for the job. All he had to do was be big and knock on the front door.

And that’s exactly what he did.

And, while the biggest member of the team was outside, Paul led James Harden, Trevor Ariza, and Gerald Green through another hallway that inexplicably connects the two locker rooms in Los Angeles. Something that was apparently very unexpected.

https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/953155882145034240

And my favorite part of all of this (besides the image of Clint Capela knocking on the front door and then awkwardly shuffling around in the hallway unsure of how else to contribute to the mayhem that he was supposed to be a part of) is Chris Paul knowing his former work place so well that he could enter in a way that would be certainly unexpected. Paul clearly knew the inner workings of the Staples Center and also knew that this entryway would not be one that would receive much attention from his former team.

He knew the pathway and he knew how his former team worked. It’s amazing.

I aspire to know about something the same way that Chris Paul knows about the intricacies of the Staples Center in Los Angeles. You see, the closest I have come to this is knowing how to get from the gymnasium in St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Sugar Land, Texas to a classroom within the same building at the church.

When I was in the Boy Scouts of America, my troop (aptly named Troop 911) met at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Sugar Land, Texas. This church had its own gymnasium. And as all properly functioning gymnasiums do, this one had a closet for basketballs and tennis balls and chairs and for kids to crawl through. Because that’s what kids do. And sometimes this closet would be locked.

But other times it would be unlocked and could be entered. And while crawling around in this gigantic closet in knee high forest green socks and khaki clothes and with a mop of brown hair on their head, boy scouts would often open another door that connected the ball closet. Instead of connecting back to the gymnasium, it connected to a lounge room/classroom/room with a foosball table.

And really that’s the closest I’ve ever come to knowing about a “secret passageway” in the same way that Chris Paul knew about a real life secret passageway.

More than likely, I’ll never know about a real life secret passageway in the same that Chris Paul does. But maybe, hopefully, I’ll know about something else to the same degree of expertise that Chris Paul has with launching effective surprise attacks on his former team.