So, for this spot, I’m going to go slightly homer.
He won’t win this spot, and I don’t even know if I’m 100% sure that I’d want him right at this spot, but he’s certainly worthy in my mind, and I thought that I’d throw the case out for him now. I’m voting for the guy I’m arguably most highly associated with on this board – Mr Christopher Emmanuel Paul.
This will probably garner a bit of controversy, thanks to his playoff success and (relatively) incomplete career, but IMO, he’s had a ridiculously good prime, and supplemented it with just enough longevity that he should absolutely be discussed around this point in the convo. And honestly, there are quite a few candidates whose placement at this stage of the project is entirely valid, and it’s up to us to concoct a case for guys we feel should be ranking highly.
Box Score
I don’t even think I need to expand on this all that much, due to general incompleteness of the box score, and due to how highly CP3 performs here. CP3’s numbers are generally quite good – he’s been a consistent 19-10-2 type guy on some very good efficiency. These numbers don’t truly jump out at people though, until we look at his advanced statistics.
Just as a very quick summary – his PER ranks 6th all time, his WS/48 ranks 2nd all time, and his BPM ranks 3rd all time. In the playoffs, these numbers change to… 5th all time, 5th all time, 3rd all-time respectively. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t an entirely fair ranking – playing in a 30-team era, it’s a bit easier for top end players to accrue higher advanced stats, because they’re greater outliers with respect to their league than in the 80s and 90s. CP3’s career hasn’t finished yet, so he hasn’t had post-prime play diminishing his averages. Box score stats aren’t the be all and end all. But considering we’re now outside of the top 20 of the project, and CP3 is ranking so highly after 12 years in the league should showcase that his advanced box score stats are… awesome.
Even looking at his PER 100 stats (normalising for pace and what not), he actually seems to be better than he first appears.
For his career, CP3 has averaged 27.6 points per 100 and 14.6 assists per 100. If we look at the amount of seasons every player has had accruing at least 25 PP100 and 10 AP100 with at least 10 WS (qualifiers well below his career averages), CP3 has had 8 seasons eclipsing these milestones. The next highest out of everybody in league history (since 1974, i.e. since per 100 stats became a thing) is Magic Johnson/LeBron James, with 5 each. I included WS as a quick catch-all for things such as team success and efficiency – obviously not a resolute metric, but for a brief litmus test, CP3’s got some great box scores on some very good teams.
Looking at him compared to Magic/Nash (the two guys who ran arguably the two greatest offensive dynasties ever) -
Prime Magic, from 85-91 averaged 27.2 PP100 and 16.2 assists.
Prime Nash, from 05-10 averaged 24.8 PP100 and 15.9 assists.
Over the past 10 years, CP3 averaged 28.3 PP100 and 15.1 assists.
Considering all 3 of these guys were highly efficient, the cursory glance is that CP3 threw together some awesome box scores given the minutes/pace he played. Box score doesn’t even matter all that much in isolation, really – it’s more so some information for those who prefer the box score to other methods of assessment. At least, it shows that he’s carrying a load that compares to the other passing orientated premier offensive players in NBA history. And that's the biggest thing about box scores - they show you why high impact players are useful, and Paul is simply an efficient point/assist production machine.
Impact
For all of his excellence in the box score, this is where I feel like CP3 really shines. His impact stats are similarly awesome.
Looking at a couple of our larger datasets –
08-11 RAPM – 6th with 7.3, with 2nd place being 7.8 and 7th place being 6.7 (i.e. he was closer to being 2nd than being 7th).
15 year RAPM – 5th in the 2001-2015 dataset behind LeBron, Garnett, Duncan and Stockton with the age adjustment (dubious in the case of Stockton due to Stockton being 40...), and 3rd (behind LeBron and Garnett) without the age adjustment.
Year by year PI RAPM – from 2009 onwards (i.e. once he entered his prime + no longer had enough non-prime minutes depressing his prior) he ranked in the top 10 every single year, and was in the top 5 every single year as a Clipper.
Team rating – on court, he’s been a +8.6, with a +13.8 on/off rating since 2008. This became as high as +14.2 in 2016-17 for the former, and +20.9 in 2014-15 as the latter!
Win Probability – 5th behind LeBron (the clear leader), Garnett, Duncan and Nowitzki. His effect on win probability is only 1 point behind #2 (Garnett). Aside from Ginobili (19.1), CP3 is well ahead of everybody else in the dataset.
Simply put – he’s had some amazing impact results. All of CP3’s peers with regard to impact since 2001 have already been voted in (i.e. LeBron and the “big 3” power forwards of the 2000s), and a number of the players often perceived to be in his impact realm, or greater (e.g. Kobe, Wade) are actually well below CP3 here! Now, simply looking at RAPM is not entirely conclusive either (in particular, I think there are elements of Kobe that underrate his impact) but the cursory glance, much like the box score, appears to bode well for CP3 too.
So far, his raw metrics paint him very favourably, so let’s look at a few of the reservations people have about him –
His perceived “drop off”
There’s a lot of chatter around CP3’s peak seasons being 2008 and 2009. IMO, a lot of this is simply due to aesthetics (fans remember that CP3 was more “drive-heavy” back then) and because he had better per game stats.
The former is because guards that drive to the hoop with reckless abandon generally resonate better with the eye test (and CP3 has gradually gravitated more to the perimeter during his career) and the latter is due to a combination of reduced minutes and playing alongside Blake. Blake is a very good player, and compared to most bigs, controls the ball quite a lot – in fact, he ranked as high as 10th in 2014-15 and 11th in 2015-16 in “touches per game,” which is a statistic traditionally dominated by guards and LeBron James. So, not only does this depress CP3's stats a bit, but the idea that CP3 is so ball dominant that guys like Blake aren't fully used (which is often proposed around here) just seems like a silly narrative at this point.
If we observe CP3's traditional statistics from the 2008 and 2009 seasons, and look at the past 3 seasons without Blake via WOWY data, here are CP3’s per 100 statistics –
2008-09
31.2 PTS, 6.8 REB, 16.1 AST, 3.9 STL, 3.9 TOV, 58.8 TS%
Past 3 seasons without Blake (2,681 minutes)
30.8 PTS, 7.2 REB, 16.0 AST, 3.0 STL, 4.1 TOV, 57.6 TS%
There is almost no major difference between these stats – scoring, rebound, assist and turnover volume are almost identical. There’s a reduction in his steals, and a minor reduction in his TS%, but these aren’t actually due to a reduction in skill – CP3, despite accruing less steals, is actually a better defender by DRAPM, because his defensive instincts and man defence have improved in order to compensate – his highest DRAPM results are actually his Clipper results, not his 2008/2009 results. And he’s got a minor reduction in TS%, but this is because he’s actually having a larger effect on team spacing now, and allows DeAndre to occupy the interior more. Without DeAndre, he has (in an admittedly small sample of 805 minutes) been averaging 34.4 points per 100 possessions on 60.1 TS% because he’s more free to occupy the space under the rim!
And heck, he’s actually been producing his best RAPM results as a Clipper, rather than as a Hornet. I cannot stress this enough - for all the talk about how 2008 and 2009 was "peak" Paul, andnowhere near this level now, RAPM actually says the exact opposite story.
A lot of CP3 “dropping off” is honestly pure narrative, and because his athleticism isn’t quite as impressive nowadays – it’s not uncommon to hear that CP3 has been getting onto the all-defensive NBA teams by his reputation, and that he’s dropped off… although his best DRAPM results have actually been in the past 4 seasons, finishing as high as 4th in DRAPM last season! This doesn’t mean I’d peg him as the #4 defender, but the best empirical tool we have for measuring defence actually paints him as improving on this front, rather than getting worse!
So, for those who view his 2008/09 seasons highly, is there really any reason to place them above CP3 of the recent seasons?
Playoff success/Big game play
This is the big one. The monkey that has plagued CP3 throughout his career is his play in the big moments. How much of this is actually due to CP3 himself?
I’ve been a bit strapped for time in general (thank you fatherhood), so I’ll blatantly copy-paste one of my former posts:
[spoiler]Really, the only series that CP3 has played in where his team “should” have won prior to the start of the series are the 2015 Rockets series, and the 2016 Trailblazers series. I’m definitely on board with the idea that a few of these series could have been won, but weren’t, but it doesn’t hurt to look over CP3’s elimination series career in a bit more detail.
2008 Spurs
Even though the Spurs were the defending champions, I don’t think they were really notably better than the Hornets. The series went to 7 games, with the Hornets losing games 6 and 7.
The Hornets lost game 3, with CP3 playing excellent basketball, so there’s not really anything else he could have done. Game 4, he wasn’t quite as good, but he still threw in a solid performance on the whole, and the Hornets lost by 20. It could be argued that CP3 may have done better siphoning some shots away from West (4/15) or Pargo (4/14), but it wasn’t made easier when the Hornets were right in this game after the 1st quarter (-2), and then went down to -13 once CP3 went to the bench for 5 minutes. The team outside of CP3 had a TS% of 0.410… that’s pathetic, so I’m almost entirely certain that CP3 trying to look for his own shot may have made things closer, but his teammates were downright poor, and this game was likely lost anyway due to how poor his teammates were.
Game 6, CP3 played a solid game, but one that wasn’t remarkable by any means (although the Spurs were clearly better on the whole, and likely would have won anyway). Game 7, similar story – his game wasn’t bad, per se, but unlike game 6, I think CP3 approaching his “standard” level of play would have likely won them the game. So, on the whole, I think that the Hornets could have taken game 7, making this series quite “winnable.” In a way, the Hornets don’t have that chance without CP3 playing as well as he did throughout the series, but I think they could have taken game 7 had CP3 approached his normal standard of play. So, he had a very good series overall, but had he had one of his “great” games in game 6, or had a “normal quality” game in game 7, I think the Hornets make it through. Probably one of the more winnable series that CP3 didn’t win in his career.
2009 Nuggets
CP3 was banged up in this series, and the Nuggets were a better team than the Hornets – I think a healthy, regular season quality CP3 keeps it competitive, so I’m not entirely sure how to assess this any further.
2011 Lakers
A lot of people are saying this series should have been winnable for the Hornets, but I think people are being quite harsh here – the Lakers were defending champions, and a much better team than this Hornets squad. The Hornets lost games 2, 3, 5 and 6.
Game 2, CP3 had quite a nice game overall, IMO. Very efficient 20 points and 9 assists, and his team shot very poorly on the whole. More than anything, Bynum and Odom were killing the Hornets this game, IMO. Game 3, the Lakers were simply the better team. CP3 played a solid, but unspectacular game, and spectacular game would have been what was needed to trump the Lakers. I think game 5 was a similar story – the Hornets actually went on their best runs in games 3 and 5 when CP3 was playing particularly pass-first, so I’m not so sure “aggression” is where the key factor is here, as much as it was the Lakers simply being better. Game 6, CP3 didn’t have a great game, but the Lakers were likely better anyway, and there’s no guarantee that they win game 7.
Calling this series “winnable” is a stretch, IMO, even if it’s “technically” accurate – the Hornets were a far worse squad than the Lakers, but CP3 played an excellent series (22 and 11.5, incredible shooting efficiency) and the rest of the Hornets were out of their depth. Their best stretches in their “loss” games occurred when CP3 wasn’t really looking for his shot, so I’m not sure you can even pin this down to aggression – the Hornets (who were already a much worse squad, and lost West) were simply out of their depth. I don’t really call this series winnable, just because CP3 was incredible in game 1 – the Hornets won that game by 9, and that’s with CP3 rocking 33 points and 14 assists on 2 turnovers and 71 TS% - this is the sort of standard he would have needed for the series to be winnable, and, well, those expectations are a bit too high, IMO.
2012 Spurs
They weren’t winning this series anyway, but this was one of the rare “poor” playoff series that CP3 has played.
2013 Memphis
This is another series that people often say is winnable, so let’s look at games 3 to 6, and see if it really was –
Game 3, CP3 played like crap. No two ways about it. If he played better, they go up 3-0, and they get the series. Game 4, CP3 was pretty good, but the Clippers lost by 21 due to the utter annihilation their frontcourt faced by Memphis. Gasol, Randolph and Prince, of all people, were savaging the Clippers frontcourt. CP3 isn’t changing this game.
Game 5, none of the Clippers play well aside from CP3, who roasted the Grizzlies for 35 points on efficient shooting with only 1 turnover. Nothing coming from CP3 is changing this game. Game 6, CP3 was excellent again, but the Grizz won comfortably. It wasn’t really the team’s offence that was subpar either – it was their team’s defence.
And that is the story of the 2013 Memphis series, IMO – CP3’s overall play was actually really good, and the Clippers were a +8 ORTG against the league’s second best defence that year, so I’m not entirely sure his “aggression” was at fault here. He played like crap in game 3, and it’s utterly true that winning game 3 may have changed the outcome of the series. But games 4-6, CP3 was clearly not the problem. The problem was Blake’s injury, as well as the team’s defence – the Clippers were destroyed by Gasol and Randolph (with solid performances from Conley and Allen). Honestly, even though the Clippers may have seemed on a similar playing field to the Grizzlies before the series, CP3 played a great series overall, and games 4-6 weren’t really his to blame. In one way, the series was “winnable” but the fact that they lost the series isn’t on CP3, and aside from game 3, I’m not sure how much he could have done. And these games happen – teams often go up 2-0, and then don’t play quite as well in game 3. But after that point, CP3 was really the only Clipper doing anything worthwhile against a very strong Memphis team.
2014 Thunder
I think the Thunder were the better team (I was very high on the Durant/Westbrook era Thunder, and thought they were an excellent squad). This series was unique, in the sense that all of the stars (CP3, Westbrook, Durant, Blake) played a really good series, and it went down to the wire. The Thunder won by less than 1 point per game.
Game 2 – CP3 was okay, but he was absolutely outplayed by Westbrook. I think he could have played better and made the result more competitive, but he didn’t “choke” or anything this game. Game 3, he was awesome, but so were Durant (who was downright unreal) and Westbrook. The biggest difference in this game is that the Thunder role players were better than the Clippers role players, IMO. Game 5 was settled by 1 point, and there’s the infamous “choke” that people allude to quite frequently on this board – not a terrific game from him, but his presence still led the Clippers to a +11 with him on the court. The biggest negative (much like the rest of the series) was Crawford, who absolutely killed the game whenever he was on the court. So, CP3 wasn’t great, and he could have helped take the elusive game 5 with better play, but the biggest impact on the Clippers in the rest of the game occurred when CP3 left the court, and OKC began feasting. So, I’m a bit undecided on game 5. He choked the ending, definitely, but I’m not sure that it’s a choke-job without him on the court in the first place.
Game 6, CP3 was great, but the Clippers lost because Durant was more awesome, and because his team sucked again.
I don’t know how to feel about this series – I think this series could very well be a series where CP3 played some excellent basketball throughout, but had clear elusive junctions in which he could have played better and captured another game or two. But then again, there were also games where there’s no chance that the Clippers win if CP3 didn’t play as well as he did. I think it was a winnable series, overall (and the end result was very close) but I don’t actually hold the series against him, because his actual level of play was quite good on the whole, and the series doesn’t seem like a “choke” if he didn’t play quite as well at certain other junctions to begin with. It’s worth mentioning that CP3 was a net +6.6 per 100 when on the court, so even if he didn’t capture a couple of moments that could have won the series, he was also the primary reason that the series was as close as it was. If Jamal Crawford wasn’t such a playoff choke artist that annihilated his own team whenever he takes the court in the playoffs, there’s a good chance the Clippers win, and a different narrative occurs.
2015 Rockets
A lot is made of the Rockets series, and how the Clippers “choked,” but to be short and sweet – it was the rest of the team, not CP3, and I fully believe this. CP3 put up 26 points and 10-11 assists per game in the infamous final 3 games of the series on elite efficiency.
The rest of the team? TS% of 46.8. That is absolutely pathetic.
Crawford (token team killer), Redick, Rivers… they were all abhorrently bad. Especially Crawford – he shot 12/41 and was -16, -26 and -22 in the past 3 games. CP3’s teammates absolutely wet the bed here, and I really can’t blame the final 3 games on him. I know some people will disagree, but I genuinely don’t, and think that there are some clearly more egregious moments in his career that are worth being lambasted for above this series.
2016 Blazers
Injured along with Blake, so they had no chance.
So on the whole, there’s a bit of a mixed bag with CP3’s playoff career. His overall play has been excellent, IMO. He’s all over the playoff statistics leaderboard, and is just as good of a player as he is in the regular season, where he is excellent.
The main critiques regarding his playoff performance is how “passive” he is, and choking in key moments.
The latter has occurred, definitely. His worst game in 2008 was game 7, and there was the OKC game 5 that he clearly could have won. So I understand the reservations regarding his playoff history here.
I do, however, think people are notoriously harsh on him sometimes – he gets blamed for being too passive in a lot of series, but a lot of the time, there’s nobody outside of LeBron James who could carry a team playing so poorly to victory. Rockets 2015 is a prime example – people would say that he let the game get away, but a 26-10 average across the last 3 games isn’t being “too passive” at all, IMO. Heck, in the first round that year, he was averaging 23 and 8 against the Spurs, but because he happened to hit a couple of big shots in the final game, people would laud the series as an example of how CP3 managed to “perfect” his level of aggression and decision making… but I’m not fully sure that aside from a couple of big shots (which can often be due to chance), that he was all that different against the Spurs than he was against many other teams at other points in his career.
I think that CP3’s “clutch” issues are heavily magnified by how poor his team has been defensively at certain junctions. To use an example, Wade was outstanding in the 2006 NBA finals (34.7 PPG, 57.2 TS%) and he definitely took the game into his own hands (only 3.8 assists per game). He was terrific, and there are no two ways around it. But it’s also worth mentioning that despite a gargantuan performance, his team only mustered a 101 ORTG that series. His teammates were quite poor offensively (average TS% of 50.4), but yes, Wade’s performance, as herculean as it was, only lifted the team to a 101 ORTG. Of course, the Heat only gave up an ORTG of 99 in the series, so they won, and Wade’s efforts were rightfully recognised. But their defence was absolutely integral to their victory too, and if the Mavs played at their normal offensive level, they take the series. It doesn’t mean Wade was any worse – he has an outstanding series either way. But considering how low a 101 ORTG really is (a -4.0 compared to the Mavs “typical” defence that season), it shows you just how important factors such as defence can be to the outcome of a series. And in a few of these series (e.g. 2011 Lakers, 2013 Grizzlies, 2015 Rockets), the inability for the rest of the team to cope defensively is what has brought them down at crucial junctions, even more than CP3’s play/the offensive play of his teammates.
Offensively, CP3’s teams have generally been really, really good in the playoffs, and he is by far the biggest reason for this. It’s their defence that has frequently let them down in the series that they’ve lost. I’ve already made some posts about how the Clippers have still been an elite offensive team in their elimination series, but their defence has basically been “worst in the league” level in these series.
I’d also say they’re magnified, because in certain series (e.g. 2011 Lakers), CP3 comes out with a scintillating performance, and then “cools down” towards the end of the series. He’s still normally very, very good, but not quite as good as he sometimes performs at the start of a series. For this reason, I think some of his series are labelled as choke jobs/more winnable than they really should be, simply because he’s performed at such high levels at certain points in the series that people expect this to be emulated every single game, and every single moment. And sometimes, these expectations are simply far too high to reasonably expect of anybody.
It’s also likely magnified because CP3, aside from the 2016 Blazers (where he got injured), has never actually played a team in the playoffs that has won less than 51 games, so some of these series go unnoticed.
Are there moments that he’s choked? Sure. Are there are few series that he could have won that he didn’t? Sure, and there are a couple of times (2008 Spurs, 2014 Thunder) where there’s a very good chance that the series could have been won, or changed, had CP3 played better at certain moments. But it’s just as likely that without CP3’s play, his teams never reach that point in the first place.
So, really, there are series that CP3 could have won that he didn’t, but at the same time, I’m not sure that some of these series really receive a fair critique, given how well that he has had to play in order to bring his team to that point in the first place.
Apologies for formatting - blatant copy/paste there.
That’s a lot to read, and basically, it reads like this – there have absolutely been moments where CP3 has played poorly at crucial junctions. There have been moments where he has played brilliantly, and the odds were simply against him. There have been moments where he has been injured. But, I’m fairly adamant in believing that luck (and the ragtag western conference) has been a huge factor that has hampered his playoff success.
After all, CP3 has only played three and a half playoff games against a team that has won fewer than 51 games, ever. The 3.5 games he played were against Portland in 2016, where he and Blake were injured in game 4 and missed the rest of the series. In Magic’s fabled 1987 season, he played teams that won 37, 42 (on a -2.54 SRS) and 39 games before making the finals. That is a large, large dissonance, and it's the type of difference that can greatly affect team results. Heck, Kidd is often credited for his 2 finals runs in 2002 and 2003 (and rightfully so, because he was a big part of it) but he did not play a single eastern conference team that actually had a win total matching any single team that CP3 has ever played in the playoffs, ever! (sans Portland)
I’d like to repeat one notion that I brought up that really makes me think twice about the criticisms levelled CP3’s way – his “aggression” which is so frequently brought up.
CP3 was berated in the 2015 conference finals for letting the series slip away in the last 3 games, where he averaged 26-10. He was lauded for his aggression vs the Spurs, where he averaged 23-8. In the elusive game 7 (known as one of the “big game moments” in his career), he only took 13 shots, well below his playoff average. He took 4 free throws. He had only 6 assists. In other words, he was 3.4 assists below his career playoff average, 3.1 shots and 1.1 free throws below his career FGA and FTA averages. But, he shot 5/6 from 3, hit a couple of big shots and the Clippers won by 2 points in a dramatic fashion vs the defending champs, so it’s now an aggressive, big time performance.
Is there really such a discernible positive difference from how he approached the Spurs compared to how he’s approached his other postseason opposition? Honestly… there isn’t, IMO. And considering how widespread this sort of opinion is, it demonstrates just how much winning bias is at play within our perceptions. If CP3 shoots 4/6 (still an excellent percentage) in that final Spurs game, he is no longer throwing in a clutch performance, but rather, the narrative morphs to, “he only took 13 shots in a 1 point, game 7 playoff loss.” And that’s honestly why over time, this individual series has actually pushed me away from resonating with the playoff results criticism from CP3 – I’m not really a winning bias fan, and that’s exactly where I feel the attitudes to CP3’s playoff career largely stem from.
How about how he has performed in close/significant games?
In elimination/closeout games for his career in the playoffs –
20.4 PPG, 9.7 AST, 2.3 STL, 2.7 TO, 56.3 TS%
In all games –
21.4 PPG, 9.4 AST, 2.2 STL, 2.7 TO, 58.5 TS%
So, he’s shooting slightly worse (but still clearly above average) in elimination and closeout games, but the rest of his stats are… almost identical, once again.
How about clutch stats?
I haven’t added the 2016-17 numbers to my personal stats, but CP3 has averaged 26.9 PP 36 minutes in the regular season (58.0 TS%) and 26.7 PP 36 (58.3 TS%) in the playoffs prior to last season. Considering that he creates so many of his own shots, his ability as a scorer in the clutch are actually quite noteworthy. These are the numbers for his entire career, not just an arbitrarily defined prime!
Honestly, almost any variable I choose to employ shows very little difference in terms of performance for CP3 depending on the severity of the scenario. His regular season/playoff box scores are highly comparable. His elimination game statistics don’t show any large scale drop off at all. Things such as his win probability once factoring in scoring margin, his close game performance (i.e. clutch stats) all seem to show a very similar story – CP3 doesn’t hit a magical new level in the clutch (certainly not like the way, say, Isiah Thomas seems infinitely better in the playoffs than in the regular season) but his performance, across the board, tends to be highly resilient. And the largest sample baseline we have for his performance (his regular season box score + impact) is incredible.
I get the idea of knocking him for injuries – he does get injured quite a bit, and that’s something that’s going to reduce his career value. But when he’s playing, he’s unreal. And that's why I'm picking him.
My next pick is Stockton. The debate between him and Paul is really, really hard for me - Paul's the clearly better player for me, but Stockton has clearly better longevity. I'm severely in two minds between these guys.
After this, I'm leaning towards Pettit, and giving Wade and Nash a serious look. Mikan is somewhere in the mix too.
So in summation -
#21 - Chris Paul
#22 - John Stockton
