Chris/Cliff Paul. Cut

Anyone who has watched the NBA playoffs, or various other channels for that matter, has certainly seen the commercials. For the last few months Chris and Cliff Paul have been front and center on State Farm ads. Over, and over, and over again.

So OK, they were twins that got separated shortly after birth, and years later finally re-united. We get it. Chris would go on to be an NBA player, and Cliff evidently grew up to be a State Farm insurance agent somewhere. We get that too.

But there's a couple things that seem a bit strange about all this.

Let's start with the obvious. Apparently, Cliff popped out of the womb with a moustache. This is very unusual. Then again, Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies was supposedly born with a full set of teeth, and Aunt Pearl found him under a cabbage leaf "out back". Huh. Maybe they're distantly related somehow. Stranger things have happened, I think. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un playing his first round of golf ever and scoring 38 under par with 11 holes-in-one was mighty impressive, I dare say.

But no way would Cliff even be in these commercials if his twin brother Chris wasn't an NBA star. They don't just hand out big-time ad gigs to insurance agents, unless your name is Flo and you're selling policies out of shoe boxes in what appears to be a sanitorium. Kiss my grits. No, that was a different dopey Flo. Nevermind.

As for Chris? He's most definitely made it, at least financially. The dude's already making $18+ million a year to play hoops for the LA Clippers. Most consider him to be a super-star. But is he?

For all the hype he gets, Chris Paul once again finds himself eliminated from the NBA playoffs. The Paul without the facial hair may have been a lot of things. NBA rookie of the year, 7-time All Star, and a couple of Olympic gold medals to boot. But one thing he has never been is a champion in the NBA. Actually, not even close. Paul has never even made it to a conference final, much less an NBA Finals, let alone actually being on a team that wins it all. In a nutshell, not counting the Olympic dream teams, Chris Paul and the teams he has been on have never won anything. Not in high school, not in college, and nowhere close in the NBA.

Then again, one is left to wonder whether Cliff Paul is still an insurance agent at all. It's not like he needs to be. Good grief, the royalties alone from those commercials have likely made him a millionaire a few times over as well. If he signed a standard contract -- every time one of those ads airs on a TV station -- anywhere -- he gets a cha-ching. Multiply that number by the vast number of TV outlets nationwide, and multiply that number again by the hundreds/thousands of times the commercials have been shown -- and next thing ya know -- we're talking about some serious dough. Whatever that number is (and counting), it likely beats the heck out of whatever he was earning before running around checking out car accidents, house fires, and the like.

While the insurance business goes on, alas, Chris Paul and his team have been eliminated yet again, far short of a championship.

So here's an idea. Stop with the commercials already. Chris can go back to his mansion somewhere, and Cliff to his day job, if he still has it.

Seeing as how they can't seem to figure anything else out -- maybe Congress should pass a law that says only champions are allowed to endorse products, with no nepotism allowed. A long-lost brother getting a free cha-ching should at least be a misdemeanor. Overweight moms of star athletes doing soup commercials, which would have us believe if not for the cream of cheesy chunky chicken noodle gumbo she lovingly fed her boy, he never would have grown up to be a professional athlete? A 5 year felony.

Such a law should also have a provision which states any athlete over 5 years removed from being a champion is not allowed to endorse products either. We don't want or need to know what brand of body powder some seven foot tall, 350 pound has-been doofus uses, or whether he can squeeze himself into a particular compact car. Such offenses should result in a mandatory 2 year probationary period at Guantanamo, with the rest of the fun-loving folks down there, to learn a little humility.

We need to reel this ad thing in before it gets out of control. After all, kids are watching too. They need role models to look up to, not also-rans, has-beens, and whatever family they can manage to drag along on the gravy train.

People like Lance Armstrong, A-Rod and Tiger Woods. Throw in the dynamic duo of Donald Sterling and Magic Johnson. Now these are names that command attention for various reasons.

Hmm. On second thought, maybe we're better off with a few more dopey Chris/Cliff Paul commercials, but it still seems like there ought to be a better way....