Official Welcome to Houston, Chris Paul 7/14

[moofs]

Rockets get a top 3 PG of all time and you guys still aren't happy

Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset with it, I'm just not excited by it yet.

Intellectually, I feel like I should be.
Who knows.

[og15]

for active players maybe
i would rank Stockton, Magic, Kidd over CP3

Is "in discussion for top 3 of all time" better for you guys? lol

FWIW I only have Magic and maybe Stockton ahead of him

Kidd lead his team to final twice
CP3 hasn't been to conference final yet

While I don't know about All-Time rankings, the Paul/Kidd comparison is interesting. Here's why. The East was it's weakest during the time Kidd went to the finals. 01-02 top 5 East teams in wins: 52 (Nets), 50, 49, 44, 44 | 02-03 top 5 East teams in wins: 50, 49 (Nets), 48, 48, 47.

Kidd in the WC with actually more talented teams had this level of success:

96-97 (40-42, traded to the team mid-season and only played ~30 games, 1st Round, 3-2)
97-98 (56-26, 1st Round, 3-1)
98-99 (27-23, 1st Round, 3-0)
99-00 (53-29, 2nd Round, 4-1)
00-01 (51-31, 1st Round, 3-1)

He goes to the East and suddenly he's a great PG leading teams to the finals while in the West he personally never participated in winning a playoff series for 5 straight seasons.

So you're probably wondering how we can say the he never won a playoff series in the West. How about 99-00? Well, in the 99-00 series that the Suns won, Duncan was injured for the Spurs, BUT, Kidd only played one game in the series. He wasn't even part of winning that series, it was all the other guys, Penny, Uncle Cliff, Rodney Rogers and young Marion that did the work. He was back for the Lakers series where he averaged 10/8/9 and shot 36/33 and .463 TS%.

This is not to say Kidd wasn't good, he was very good, but his whole claim to success in his prime is based on a 4-5 year window of sucking in the EC where his team which we would say didn't look that special was still the most overall talented team in the East for two of those years. They had a great defensive core, and while their offense was weak, all it needed to be was better than the other weak East teams offense vs their elite defense (which Kidd was a big part of).

Their ECF opponents:

Celtics (18th Ortg / 5th Drtg)
Pistons (15th Ortg / 4th Drtg)

After the East got some infusion of talent (rookies Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Shaq traded), and despite having VC and a better RJ (but injured a lot), but much weaker front court though, Kidd never did anything significant playoff wise with the Nets again. So I don't know, when players have such specific windows of opportunity like that, and then do nothing more than first or second round outside of that, it's not very good for arguing them above others. Yes, it's great they took advantage, but the talent needed to win is only relative to your competition, so it is good that they can win while having the best talent around them relative to other teams, but not everyone can get that. Another guys is AI who despite the downgrading of his 00-01 team that is done, he had the most overall talented team around him compared to all the other stars he faced (VC and Allen) because defense does matter. We look at later seasons, and the Sixers did nothing, and in 02-03, a 48 win Sixers lost 4-2 to a Pistons team that didn't have Billups for 3.5 games in the series. They lost game 2 despite no Billups for the Pistons as Iverson was held scoreless in OT. They lost game 5 again with no Billups as Iverson was outscored by Chucky Atkins 17 to 14 and shot 5/25 FG, then in game 6 Billups came back and they were done.

[MaxRider]

Is the East really that bad in early 2000?
You have Iverson is Philly. T-Mac in Orlando. Pierce/Walker in Boston. B-Diddy in Charlotte (Hornets), Big Ben in Detroit

[og15]

Is the East really that bad in early 2000?
You have Iverson is Philly. T-Mac in Orlando. Pierce/Walker in Boston. B-Diddy in Charlotte (Hornets), Big Ben in Detroit

The problem was who else was around any of those guys? Also Ben was a defensive player, you still needed people to shoot, score and run the offense. Antoine Walker was more about stats than actual effectiveness. We have Cousins and Anthony Davis who couldn't get their teams to the post-season recently for example, so one player is only doing so much. A finals team in the early EC could have been last year's Thunder, at least ECF. That was a first round team...

[moofs]

"Iverson shot like 39% from the field, and it wasn't because he was shooting 38% from 3."

His average TS% was 51%, while an average point guard's was 52.1%.

Last year, by comparison, Westbrook's was 55.4%, Harden's was 61.4%, CP3's was 61.4%, and Steph's was 62.4% (against an average of 53.1%)

[jwise44]

Rockets get a top 3 PG of all time and you guys still aren't happy

I am not worried about the talent of Paul, and really I'm not worried about his fit with harden

I am worried about how much of a hardass he is and how rude and short tempered of a teammate he is (from what I have heard and read since he's been in the league)....I understand he is a perfectionist and it's all because he wants to win, but I feel like our team last year was so good because of chemistry. Everyone looked like they were back in highschool on an aau team with friends just enjoying the game and each other. It looked like they all had fun.......to me Chris Paul seems like a player that takes the fun out of the game and makes it a job where he is the insanely strict boss


This may be wrong and I admit that it is just A feeling from watching Chris on the court and reading everything I have about him in the past....and also I admit that even if those assumptions about Chris Paul's attitude are right, maybe it will help the team in the end

Just my 2 cents

[texasholdem]

How's James gonna like it when he slacks on defense and Fish Sticks screams at him?

[BallerTalk]

So, while CP3 was visiting Drew League checking out James Harden, this happened

Read on Twitter

[texasholdem]

James looks weird in those shorts

[DoItALL9]

Any chance trading CP3 for Irving could be an upgrade?

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[texasholdem]

Any chance trading CP3 for Irving could be an upgrade?

Sent from my LG-H872 using RealGM mobile app

I'd do it but Kyrie wants to be "the man" on the team. Don't think he'd want to play with Harden so he might not re-sign. Cavs probably demand Capela be included too.

[moofs]

Youth upgrade, but not a production upgrade for maybe 2-4 years

[K_chile22]

Any chance trading CP3 for Irving could be an upgrade?

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No. It could extend the window I guess but CP is much better and his defense is essential next to Harden

[DoItALL9]

Any chance trading CP3 for Irving could be an upgrade?

Sent from my LG-H872 using RealGM mobile app

No. It could extend the window I guess but CP is much better and his defense is essential next to Harden

I think cp3 is better but Kyrie is younger, cheaper, and a better 3 point shooter

[K_chile22]

Any chance trading CP3 for Irving could be an upgrade?

Sent from my LG-H872 using RealGM mobile app

No. It could extend the window I guess but CP is much better and his defense is essential next to Harden

I think cp3 is better but Kyrie is younger, cheaper, and a better 3 point shooter

The first two are valid, but CP has shot better in 3 of the last 4 years on catch and shoot 3s. Kyrie's overall % are higher because he gets a lot of spot up looks playing with LeBron

[DoItALL9]

No. It could extend the window I guess but CP is much better and his defense is essential next to Harden

I think cp3 is better but Kyrie is younger, cheaper, and a better 3 point shooter

The first two are valid, but CP has shot better in 3 of the last 4 years on catch and shoot 3s. Kyrie's overall % are higher because he gets a lot of spot up looks playing with LeBron

He's seemingly less injury prone in recent years especially once getting to the end of the season specifically the playoffs.