Suns point guard Chris Paul receives high praise in NBA 75 Stories

Channing Frye's description of Chris Paul in NBA.com's 75 Stories about the Phoenix Suns veteran point guard is vivid, graphic — and very appropriate.

"Chris Paul is like a pit bull on a tire when it comes to winning," Frye said. "He is going to hang on that thing until the branch breaks. You know the pit bull is on a tire and that thing just holds and locks it."

Paul was selected to the NBA's 75th anniversary team. In celebrating its 75th anniversary season, the league is showing short featurettes of each player chosen.

An 11-time All-Star out of Wake Forest, Paul is receiving kudos in the video from Frye, who played against him in college while at Arizona, three-time NBA champions Dwyane Wade and Stephen Curry and former Clippers teammates DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin.

"He will do anything and compete versus anyone to win a game every night." concluded Frye, who grew up in Phoenix and played four seasons for the Suns.

Curry recalls having "some epic battles" with Paul, but said he looked up to the 10-time All-NBA selection when entering the NBA out of Davidson.

"Learned a lot from him," Curry added as he and Wade were also selected to the 75th anniversary team.

Paul is in the top five all-time in assists (3rd) and steals (5th) in the NBA, but he is equally known for making clutch plays, leadership and making his teams better.

"From the time that I've known basketball and could understand it, he's the greatest leader that I know," Wade said. "To be able to watch him at his craft, he orchestrates the game. When he has the ball, it's like he sees the game. He's playing the game before you even play it. Just to watch someone have that level of greatness, and you can see it in his eyes and obviously I've got a chance to get into his mind, it's just incredible."

Paul led Phoenix to the finals last year in his first season there after the Suns hadn't made the playoffs since 2010. Now in his 17th NBA season, Paul is playing a key role in the Suns having the NBA's best record this year.

"He's a winner," Wade continued. "And everybody puts championships on being a winner in the NBA, but Chris Paul is a winner. Every organization he's went to, he's walked away from the organization and that organization has been better. The organization has went from here to there every time. So I look at him as one of the greatest leaders to ever play this game and one of the best winners that we've ever had. to play this game as well."

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Suns PG Chris Paul receives high praise in NBA 75 Stories