RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #20 (Chris Paul)

[Owly]

I know there's some great minds in those discussions, and everything is debated with a lot of work.... but man, this year is really awkward.

Chris Paul is not # top 20 of all time by any means. He is a really good player, but man, the guy can't be healthy in playoffs, have not been MVP ever, have played only one final when he lost after a 2-0...

He has lost several series with HCA
2008 vs SAS
2013 vs Grizzlies
2016 vs Blazers
2017 vs Jazz
2018 vs Warriors
2021 vs Bucks
2022 vs Mavs

Really this resume is better than Dr J, Moses, Durant or even Jokic (with years ahead in his career)??? Then you can argue about other PG being better than him (Stockton, Nash for example)

I know there's less than 30 votes but man... I think this list is way different than global opinion.

Polite as the intro is, I would as ever say to those criticizing a particular outcome
... you will be better able to engage with the outcomes by reading the voters rationales and arguments for and against.

On some of the reasoning offered here:
In particular to the main(? longest at least) line of reasoning offered here ... I'm not sure how counting series lost with HCA is a measure of an individual.
- It is a binary level team outcome.
- It comes with perverse incentives (e.g. it would be better not to secure HCA, it would be better/safer not to advance without HCA if HCA is in place for the next round).

Regarding "have [sic] not been MVP ever"
the NBA MVPs (I'll exclude ABA one) not yet listed are: (given the problem "this year" - given with previous 3 rankings via Doc's spreasheet - note non active players should be expected to have fallen as recent players pass them)
Wanzer [not always regarded as fully "canon"]: NA,NA,NA
Pettit: 21,24,25
Cousy: 71,46,63
Unseld: 69,49,70
Reed: 47,56,45
Cowens: 52, 60,54
McAdoo: 65,70,77
Walton: NA, 98,100
Erving: 14,16,18
M Malone: 19,20,20
Barkley: 20,19,21
Iverson: 56,58,66
Nash: 25,26,27
Rose: NA,NA,NA
Durant: 36,28,22
Harden: NA,66,31
and the 3 still prime guys (GA, NJ, JE)
about half the names on the list should illustrate what a flawed measure this would be in terms of (not) having much of a first glance semblance of a case versus Paul (the previous rankings are not a proof of this but might give a guide to how - given your problem with this iteration - and in which cases there is likely limited conversation to be had [and indeed has not been such in the past])
This (the flawed nature of "got an MVP! as measure) is because of factors such as ...
- It's not a direct measure of a player
- it is binary and therefore necessarily blunt tool
- it can regard only a single (regular) season (it gives us no info on surrounding years ... I would for instance take Paul's '08 2nd place and following ten years over '78 Walton and his next ten, or more fairly career for career)
- It's heavily influenced by circumstance (teammates; rivals teammates; politics large and small scale [elements of voter fatigue or conversely being "owed one", in earlier days possible racism - on the smaller side Hollinger (2004) reported that J O'Neal got Lacy Banks' vote rather than KG because he was nicer in interviews]; the alignment of your best year with your teams best year and with a year in which top level talent is weaker or on weaker teams or less healthy ...



I strongly disagree with some posters reasoning (probably all of them at points), and whilst not voting I'm sometimes arguing that ... as ever though as good or as bad as voters lists or the aggregating thereof may be the reasoning is there to engage with (and more than the results gives a richer resource on the cases for and against, which isn't to say every post is "gold") and it is hard to create a coherent, consistent, useful criteria and there are certainly different means to doing so. If one has one and the project is active (as now) and is displeased with the reasoning and desire to get involved to change it ... it's there for you to do so either as a voter (after probationary period) or through discussion.

[FJS]

I know there's some great minds in those discussions, and everything is debated with a lot of work.... but man, this year is really awkward.

Chris Paul is not # top 20 of all time by any means. He is a really good player, but man, the guy can't be healthy in playoffs, have not been MVP ever, have played only one final when he lost after a 2-0...

He has lost several series with HCA
2008 vs SAS
2013 vs Grizzlies
2016 vs Blazers
2017 vs Jazz
2018 vs Warriors
2021 vs Bucks
2022 vs Mavs

Really this resume is better than Dr J, Moses, Durant or even Jokic (with years ahead in his career)??? Then you can argue about other PG being better than him (Stockton, Nash for example)

I know there's less than 30 votes but man... I think this list is way different than global opinion.

Polite as the intro is, I would as ever say to those criticizing a particular outcome
... you will be better able to engage with the outcomes by reading the voters rationales and arguments for and against.

On some of the reasoning offered here:
In particular to the main(? longest at least) line of reasoning offered here ... I'm not sure how counting series lost with HCA is a measure of an individual.
- It is a binary level team outcome.
- It comes with perverse incentives (e.g. it would be better not to secure HCA, it would be better/safer not to advance without HCA if HCA is in place for the next round).

Regarding "have [sic] not been MVP ever"
the NBA MVPs (I'll exclude ABA one) not yet listed are: (given the problem "this year" - given with previous 3 rankings via Doc's spreasheet - note non active players should be expected to have fallen as recent players pass them)
Wanzer [not always regarded as fully "canon"]: NA,NA,NA
Pettit: 21,24,25
Cousy: 71,46,63
Unseld: 69,49,70
Reed: 47,56,45
Cowens: 52, 60,54
McAdoo: 65,70,77
Walton: NA, 98,100
Erving: 14,16,18
M Malone: 19,20,20
Barkley: 20,19,21
Iverson: 56,58,66
Nash: 25,26,27
Rose: NA,NA,NA
Durant: 36,28,22
Harden: NA,66,31
and the 3 still prime guys (GA, NJ, JE)
about half the names on the list should illustrate what a flawed measure this would be in terms of (not) having much of a first glance semblance of a case versus Paul (the previous rankings are not a proof of this but might give a guide to how - given your problem with this iteration - and in which cases there is likely limited conversation to be had [and indeed has not been such in the past])
This (the flawed nature of "got an MVP! as measure) is because of factors such as ...
- It's not a direct measure of a player
- it is binary and therefore necessarily blunt tool
- it can regard only a single (regular) season (it gives us no info on surrounding years ... I would for instance take Paul's '08 2nd place and following ten years over '78 Walton and his next ten, or more fairly career for career)
- It's heavily influenced by circumstance (teammates; rivals teammates; politics large and small scale [elements of voter fatigue or conversely being "owed one", in earlier days possible racism - on the smaller side Hollinger (2004) reported that J O'Neal got Lacy Banks' vote rather than KG because he was nicer in interviews]; the alignment of your best year with your teams best year and with a year in which top level talent is weaker or on weaker teams or less healthy ...



I strongly disagree with some posters reasoning (probably all of them at points), and whilst not voting I'm sometimes arguing that ... as ever though as good or as bad as voters lists or the aggregating thereof may be the reasoning is there to engage with (and more than the results gives a richer resource on the cases for and against, which isn't to say every post is "gold") and it is hard to create a coherent, consistent, useful criteria and there are certainly different means to doing so. If one has one and the project is active (as now) and is displeased with the reasoning and desire to get involved to change it ... it's there for you to do so either as a voter (after probationary period) or through discussion.

No, it's not a mesaure of an individual, but if you are in a team with some all nba type of players (Griffin was 2nd or 3rd from 2012 to 2015), Jordan (all nba 1st or 3rd) from 2015 to 2017 with 2 defensive and play with other talented teammates like Crawford, Redick, Jeff Green to name a few and not to be able to arrive to a conference finals talk a lot about you.

Then, he went to Rockets, when he was not the best player in the team. Still, they fall to GSW (not a big offense), but they should have won with HCA and 3-2.
Next season he was the 4th scorer in the team (I say that not to say he was bad, but to say he was playing with some capable players) and they dropped in RS and fall another time in WCSF.
He showed a great comeback in OKC with Danilo and SGA (showing he was going to be a great player) and then goes to PHO in a team with (another time) a better player than him (Booker) all-nba 1st in 2022.

Since he left Hornets, he played with a lot of talent. And he has failed, not one or two times. A lot of times.
I'm not saying he is a bad player by any means, but there's a lot of talent still not selected to say he is above.

Regards.

[Owly]

I know there's some great minds in those discussions, and everything is debated with a lot of work.... but man, this year is really awkward.

Chris Paul is not # top 20 of all time by any means. He is a really good player, but man, the guy can't be healthy in playoffs, have not been MVP ever, have played only one final when he lost after a 2-0...

He has lost several series with HCA
2008 vs SAS
2013 vs Grizzlies
2016 vs Blazers
2017 vs Jazz
2018 vs Warriors
2021 vs Bucks
2022 vs Mavs

Really this resume is better than Dr J, Moses, Durant or even Jokic (with years ahead in his career)??? Then you can argue about other PG being better than him (Stockton, Nash for example)

I know there's less than 30 votes but man... I think this list is way different than global opinion.

Polite as the intro is, I would as ever say to those criticizing a particular outcome
... you will be better able to engage with the outcomes by reading the voters rationales and arguments for and against.

On some of the reasoning offered here:
In particular to the main(? longest at least) line of reasoning offered here ... I'm not sure how counting series lost with HCA is a measure of an individual.
- It is a binary level team outcome.
- It comes with perverse incentives (e.g. it would be better not to secure HCA, it would be better/safer not to advance without HCA if HCA is in place for the next round).

Regarding "have [sic] not been MVP ever"
the NBA MVPs (I'll exclude ABA one) not yet listed are: (given the problem "this year" - given with previous 3 rankings via Doc's spreasheet - note non active players should be expected to have fallen as recent players pass them)
Wanzer [not always regarded as fully "canon"]: NA,NA,NA
Pettit: 21,24,25
Cousy: 71,46,63
Unseld: 69,49,70
Reed: 47,56,45
Cowens: 52, 60,54
McAdoo: 65,70,77
Walton: NA, 98,100
Erving: 14,16,18
M Malone: 19,20,20
Barkley: 20,19,21
Iverson: 56,58,66
Nash: 25,26,27
Rose: NA,NA,NA
Durant: 36,28,22
Harden: NA,66,31
and the 3 still prime guys (GA, NJ, JE)
about half the names on the list should illustrate what a flawed measure this would be in terms of (not) having much of a first glance semblance of a case versus Paul (the previous rankings are not a proof of this but might give a guide to how - given your problem with this iteration - and in which cases there is likely limited conversation to be had [and indeed has not been such in the past])
This (the flawed nature of "got an MVP! as measure) is because of factors such as ...
- It's not a direct measure of a player
- it is binary and therefore necessarily blunt tool
- it can regard only a single (regular) season (it gives us no info on surrounding years ... I would for instance take Paul's '08 2nd place and following ten years over '78 Walton and his next ten, or more fairly career for career)
- It's heavily influenced by circumstance (teammates; rivals teammates; politics large and small scale [elements of voter fatigue or conversely being "owed one", in earlier days possible racism - on the smaller side Hollinger (2004) reported that J O'Neal got Lacy Banks' vote rather than KG because he was nicer in interviews]; the alignment of your best year with your teams best year and with a year in which top level talent is weaker or on weaker teams or less healthy ...



I strongly disagree with some posters reasoning (probably all of them at points), and whilst not voting I'm sometimes arguing that ... as ever though as good or as bad as voters lists or the aggregating thereof may be the reasoning is there to engage with (and more than the results gives a richer resource on the cases for and against, which isn't to say every post is "gold") and it is hard to create a coherent, consistent, useful criteria and there are certainly different means to doing so. If one has one and the project is active (as now) and is displeased with the reasoning and desire to get involved to change it ... it's there for you to do so either as a voter (after probationary period) or through discussion.

No, it's not a mesaure of an individual, but if you are in a team with some all nba type of players (Griffin was 2nd or 3rd from 2012 to 2015), Jordan (all nba 1st or 3rd) from 2015 to 2017 with 2 defensive and play with other talented teammates like Crawford, Redick, Jeff Green to name a few and not to be able to arrive to a conference finals talk a lot about you.

Then, he went to Rockets, when he was not the best player in the team. Still, they fall to GSW (not a big offense), but they should have won with HCA and 3-2.
Next season he was the 4th scorer in the team (I say that not to say he was bad, but to say he was playing with some capable players) and they dropped in RS and fall another time in WCSF.
He showed a great comeback in OKC with Danilo and SGA (showing he was going to be a great player) and then goes to PHO in a team with (another time) a better player than him (Booker) all-nba 1st in 2022.

Since he left Hornets, he played with a lot of talent. And he has failed, not one or two times. A lot of times.
I'm not saying he is a bad player by any means, but there's a lot of talent still not selected to say he is above.

Regards.

So this already seems like a different, still somewhat ad hoc summation.

Regarding talent levels ... I suspect we disagree on Paul so it's fair to say we might disagree on the value of DeAndre Jordan or Jamal Crawford.

And this where we can look at statistics including impact based statistics and say .. looking just at the crude on-off level, for over a decade different teams are really good with Chris Paul on the court and significantly substantially (more than 10 points) worse when he's off the court ... maybe he's really lucky to play with DeAndre Jordan ... or maybe he's providing significant lift (here stuff like RAPM, trying to mitigate or find the most likely solution for collinearity issues). Versus one of those you previously cited (Erving) there's a pretty sizable discrepancy in terms of crude surface level (on-off) impact data footprint for them whilst both were on good teams (Erving's data being incomplete - only available for his NBA days, but we do have it hence the use of on-off, plus it's ease of use and universality).

Regarding "he has failed" again you seem to be using a team measure and allocating blame to an individual.

I also don't understand "they should have won with 3-2" as an overview point about a player. For one thing it's not about a player. But especially ... we know the whole series ... if you think they shouldn't have lost say "they shouldn't have lost" but "from 3-2" ... okay, say one agrees ... but should they have been up 3-2? Isn't that a credit to the team? Why would that first part be taken as a given? Why is it worse to have taken a lead than to have always been behind (or tied)? How is that a stick to beat a team with (never mind a player).

Regarding conference finals as a marker (we'll say for a team and assume the "this is a team not individual metric") this can rather depend on context ... in a weaker conference with some luck there are teams that over a larger sample, including the surrounding years (including playoffs) do not look special that have made conference finals and conversely there are good teams that miss them. Again then, this is can be pretty noisy as a measure of team quality.


Anyway as I say if you feel passionately about the standard of debate and the outcomes, the threads are there either as a contributor or (after project admin approval) voter.
I think I'll cease further on debate Paul in this thread.

[PaulieWal]

CP3 over Wade??

I don't know if my heart can take this.

[rk2023]

CP3 over Wade??

I don't know if my heart can take this.

Only a couple people have even nominated him thusfar

[PaulieWal]

CP3 over Wade??

I don't know if my heart can take this.

Only a couple people have even nominated him thusfar

I haven't read this thread yet to see the CP3 justifications but for me personally Wade would be higher than CP on an all-time basis.

Maybe I'll change my mind once I read the discussion.

[AEnigma]

Surprised Paul’s lack of durability especially in the playoffs wasn’t a factor for people voting him in this early. Oh well.

I did not vote for Paul this round and would have at least considered a couple of players over him next round, largely for this reason.

However, I think a voting base which put Jerry West at #14 despite three postseasons where he played a total of fifteen minutes combined probably should not be expected to be too down on Chris Paul either. They do not have the same résumé — Chris Paul in his entire postseason prime has only reached the conference finals twice, and this was the only other year he even lost to the eventual champion — but I find it a little funny for this to be the criticism when West had such a strong push for #11. Overlapping voters seem to have treated them similarly: high impact guards who generally carried over their individual success into the postseason but for various reasons failed to break through as their team’s best player.

[rk2023]

I was one of the higher on Jerry West people in this project (ofc, same goes for Paul as I voted him in this round at at 19). I'd be higher I am not *as* critical and prone to weigh down for some PS injuries and season-over-season 82 game durability (lack thereof rather). If one was/is lower on Paul and West for those reasons, I certainly understand it. Agree with AEnigma ITO not being consistent with one or the other here, though.