limbo wrote:For as long as i can remember, one of the biggest complains about CP3's game was that he selfishly monopolizes the ball on offense and makes every possession about how much he can dribble around in search for the perfect pass while making the offense stagnant. I thought that was one of the dumbest things i've heard, but if there was even a modicum of doubt about his offensive flexibility and impact it was dispelled in the last two and a half years basically. First he joins the most dominant on-ball player in NBA history in Houston and adapts/sacrifices his game to form the greatest back-court of all time. And now, at 34 years of age, he's been forcefully traded into a young/flawed team where he fully embraced a more egalitarian style of offense and seems to be perfectly fine sharing the court with several ball-handlers. Not only that, they seemingly found a way to thrive together off their strengths and minimized their weaknesses.
CP3 is one of the best players of all-time and that's with accounting for the fact that he was historically derailed by inopportune injuries and bad luck. Arguably the best player to potentially never win a ring. Deal with it.
Billups/Bledsoe/CP3 lineups also crushed the league that last Del Negro year. And they still had Crawford to feed, with absolutely no floor space because of Griffin/Jordan.
This is nothing new. He and Collison had great cohesion for a second time with Gentry’s offense.
Him letting primary ballhandlers thrive is really nothing he hasn’t done. And just like now it’ll only show up in impact stats because he’s letting guys be their best selves while still being himself.
I was watching 11-12 CP3 the other night and him being athletically diminished is such a myth it’s unbelievable.
In today’s game, where ballhandlers tend to go the Luka/Trae route instead of what CP3 does, he would’ve put up mind boggling numbers. Not that it would be surprising.
CP3 was still a rim pressure demon up until 2014-15.