What is the argument against Chris Paul in the top 20?

[freethedevil]

This anaytics culture aroubd here is very strange

Well informed people seem strange to less informed person. More at 11.

[freethedevil]

How about staying healthy in the playoffs?

As someone whose used singular seasons to lower other seasons curry's had, surely you realize that an over the hill cp3 being on an amazing team makes better versions of him being incapable of that extremely unlikely.

[Prokorov]

For me, CP3 was basically a top 5 player for 11 years straight. Bird can't say that and most others Point Guards sans Magic/Oscar can claim that as well.

the top 20 all time is reserved for guys who were "top 1" in the league. not top 5. not always a bridesmaid. not always short of being good enough to carry a team to a title.

CP is a top 50 player for sure. and yeah stats and advanced stuff measuring impact matter. but you also need to have won a title or have been the leagues best player once you start talking about top 10 or top 20 ever.

[Threetimes10]

The English language.

CP3 being a top 20 player of all time is an insult to people who think.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Unjustified confidence and sheer ignorance in one repulsive package. You're the NBA equivalent of flat-earthers

[freethedevil]

For me, CP3 was basically a top 5 player for 11 years straight. Bird can't say that and most others Point Guards sans Magic/Oscar can claim that as well.

the top 20 all time is reserved for guys who were "top 1" in the league.

Glad to know you don't think Kobe is a top 20 all-timer.

[Prokorov]

For me, CP3 was basically a top 5 player for 11 years straight. Bird can't say that and most others Point Guards sans Magic/Oscar can claim that as well.

the top 20 all time is reserved for guys who were "top 1" in the league.

Glad to know you don't think Kobe is a top 20 all-timer.

Kobe was the MVP in 07-08 so he was top 1 at one point. also won a title as his teams best player and 5 overall.

things paul never came close to doing

[freethedevil]

the top 20 all time is reserved for guys who were "top 1" in the league.

Glad to know you don't think Kobe is a top 20 all-timer.

Kobe was the MVP in 07-08

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

[Prokorov]

Glad to know you don't think Kobe is a top 20 all-timer.

Kobe was the MVP in 07-08

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

none of that is relevant.

[dygaction]

Glad to know you don't think Kobe is a top 20 all-timer.

Kobe was the MVP in 07-08

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

Man, you are not even a Kobe hater but let the CP3 discussion dominated your judgement. KG was **** all over by Dirk, Duncan, and Shaq in the West. He was able to win a ring by joining PP's Celtics...
KG is the equivalent PF of CP3. As long as you do not talk about winning the basketball game, all other aspects look legit. KG is hyped higher but at least he got an MVP and contributed an important part to a ring.

[freethedevil]

Kobe was the MVP in 07-08

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

Man, you are not even a Kobe hater but let the CP3 discussion dominated your judgement. KG was **** all over by Dirk, Duncan, and Shaq in the West.

Duncan and Shaq? I thought we were talking kobe? You realize those are two very different calibres of players right?

With consistently good supporting casts

Shaq had 3, +7 stretches and 2 +5 stretches
Duncan had 3 +7 stretches and 2 +4 stretches
KG improved his team by 7 points, in the playoffs, at his best three year stretch, had two +5 po stretches at the back end of his prime, while dealing with terrible casts for most of his career.

These are players who could do everything for contenders, were still the most impactful players in the league on title teams, had near uninamous mvp's, and whose impact and box based playoff or regular season stats remained consistent regardless of how terrible or good their team did(indicating that their supporting casts were the main variable). These are best in the league level players.


Here's the second tier:

Kobe never exceeded +4 playoff impact despite having several shots at the apple with good-great supporitng casts for the vast majority of his prime.
Dirk managed a +4 playoff run once. He played with good to great casts for the majority of his prime.
CP3 also managed a +4 playoff run.

No matter the cast, no matter the situation, no matter how good or how bad there were teammates were, they NEVER crossed into the next tier. Whether you use metrics that predict that come directly from winning or you simple arbitrary box compositiones that specficially overrate one-way, one dimensional offensive studs, they never had an especially strong case for MVP, and they never approached the level of the first tier of player.

Kobe was never the best player in the league, because when he peaked, the first tier of players(lebron, kg) and even members of the second tier of players(nash, cp3) blocked or contested him. It's bad luck for sure, but it can happen when you're a second tier star.

[dygaction]

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

Man, you are not even a Kobe hater but let the CP3 discussion dominated your judgement. KG was **** all over by Dirk, Duncan, and Shaq in the West.

Duncan and Shaq? I thought we were talking kobe? You realize those are two very different calibres of players right?

With consistently good supporting casts

Shaq had 3, +7 stretches and 2 +5 stretches
Duncan had 3 +7 stretches and 2 +4 stretches
KG improved his team by 7 points, in the playoffs, at his best three year stretch, had two +5 po stretches at the back end of his prime, while dealing with terrible casts for most of his career.

These are players who could do everything for contenders, were still the most impactful players in the league on title teams, had near uninamous mvp's, and whose impact and box based playoff or regular season stats remained consistent regardless of how terrible or good their team did(indicating that their supporting casts were the main variable). These are best in the league level players.


Here's the second tier:

Kobe never exceeded +4 playoff impact despite having several shots at the apple with good-great supporitng casts for the vast majority of his prime.
Dirk managed a +4 playoff run once. He played with good to great casts for the majority of his prime.
CP3 also managed a +4 playoff run.

No matter the cast, no matter the situation, no matter how good or how bad there were teammates were, they NEVER crossed into the next tier. Whether you use metrics that predict that come directly from winning or you simple arbitrary box compositiones that specficially overrate one-way, one dimensional offensive studs, they never had an especially strong case for MVP, and they never approached the level of the first tier of player.

Kobe was never the best player in the league, because when he peaked, the first tier of players(lebron, kg) and even members of the second tier of players(nash, cp3) blocked or contested him. It's bad luck for sure, but it can happen when you're a second tier star.

The basketball is a game that values one team out score the other. Players that have won at least one MVP and one FMVP are proven winners with superior talent over their peers. Out of the many you listed, LeBron, KD, Duncan, Kobe, Dirk, and Shaq are in that group so they can be compared. Folks like Isiah, Curry, Wade, Nash, Leonard, Malone, Barkley and KG do not have both and they should be ranked in another tier (15-25). Curry had more than one MVP, and he and KG was really close to FMVP, and Wade was close to MVP, so they may have slight overlap with the previous group. The next tier, like CP3, Stockton, and Pippen would have a hard time making top 25. You really cannot assume too many things to give the players benefit of the doubt.

[Dr Positivity]

For me, it's health (if anything - I suspect that I'd still scrape him into my top 20). His healthy prime level of play was absurd, but the health is a real issue. Of course, it also begs the question of whether we look at other players in the same vein health wise - do we punish guys like Curry for his playoff injuries in 2016 and 2018, when his team was actually capable of winning series without him? CP3's injury history is pretty bad, but arguably looks worse than it is because his injuries basically ensured the collapse of his teams, which doesn't happen to all cases of injury in NBA history.

I'm not sure if I have him in top 20 or not, but my concerns are:

- lack of durability and that's huge especially in postseason,
- great defensive player but his defense isn't good enough alone to anchor your team,
- his conservative style sometimes can limit offensive celling, although I'm not sure I'd agree here,
- his longevity is very good, but not elite ans he's already past his prime.

Just going to highlight these two points.

The offensive ceiling point is one I simply don't buy. If we look at prime CP3's team's ORTGs when he's on the court, he is elite in this manner - best in the league levels.

2008: 8th in the league behind Radmanovic, Nash, Vujacic, Stoudemire, Kirilenko, Stojakovic (on his own team), Boozer. Aside from Nash, who of those players is anywhere near Paul offensively?
2012: 6th in the league behind Bonner, Harden, Nick Collison, Splitter and Butler (on his own team). Aside from Harden (who, even in 2012, was amazing offensively), none of those guys are even remotely close to him offensively.
2013: equal 1st with LeBron, with the top 6 all being from Miami or LAC.
2014: equal 4th behind Brandan Wright, Matt Barnes (on his own team) and Ginobili.
2015: 2nd to Blake (Who missed 15 games that year, whereas CP3 somehow played 82 games )
2016: 14th (behind a bunch of GSW, LAC, OKC guys, and don't forget, Blake missed heaps of this season)
2017: 4th (behind Curry, Durant and Pachulia)
2018: 2nd to Curry

That's an incredible run of offences. In particular, his Clipper years had him as the #1 ranked high volume guy from 2012-2014, and essentially equal 1st with Blake in 2015 (don't forget, collinearity and that). His 2017 and 2018 years were only beaten by the GSW juggernaut, and in 2016, he ran the 4th best offence in the league with him on the court with his top 10 lineup guys as Jordan, Redick, *big drop*, Mbah a Moute, Crawford, Blake (only 861 minutes for Blake), Pierce, Wesley Johnson, Jeff Green, Austin Rivers and Lance Stephenson.

To add to this, even looking at 2012-2017, the league average for ORTG was 106.3, and CP3 still had an ORTG of 113.5 without Blake (who had 109.3 without CP3), and 116.8 with him. In the regular season, CP3 has led a plethora of top end lineups.

His offensive on-off during the regular season in these years was:

2008: +15.2
2009: +16.0
2010: +3.7 (he was hobbled all year)
2011: +11.2
2012: +14.0
2013: +12.2
2014: +4.9 (low, but he was also the #1 ranked high-volume offensive player by ORTG that year anyway)
2015: +19.5
2016: +14.0
2017: +11.4
2018: +8.1, even though most of his "off" minutes had Harden on the court

In the 3 year RAPM samples that we have available that cover his prime (2012-15, 2013-16, 2014-17, 2015-18), he ranks 3rd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, in a clear top 5 with Curry/LeBron (clear top 2), Harden and Westbrook.

Even in the playoffs, he had a heap of series (the playoff series in 2008, 2013-2015) that have him with elite ORTGs in the playoffs. Playoff ORTGs etc are way harder because it's not a balanced playing field, but there's a sample that does show that CP3 is capable of very high level team offence in the playoffs.

If you want a brief playoff summary of say, CP3's LAC career in the playoffs (sans 2012, where he sucked), he drops from a 116.5 to 112.3 ORTG with CP3 on the court. That's a drop of 4.2 points. Of course... he also faced an average defence of -3.2, which would mean that his relative on court ORTG drops by a... gargantuan 1 point. The guy that arguably led the best offences in the league during this period (and in the regular season, his on-court ORTG ranks #1 in this time period) has a gargantuan 1 point drop on team ORTG.

There's very little to suggest that his play caps his team's performance at an unusually low ORTG. I mean, it's right in the ballpark of what the other top end guys are doing. Not calculating all the numbers for everybody because it's a lot of work, but the fact that CP3 ends up being a +9 guy (according to BBR) or +9.9 guy (according to NBA.com) in the postseason on offence is pretty excellent in my books.

As for the longevity argument...

Without going into too much depth/arguing how he ranks in different years, he actually ranks fairly highly on the all time leaderboard (I'm talking top 10ish all time) for "most seasons in the top 5/10 in WS/BPM"). 8th all time in seasons with at least 10 win shares, etc. There's nothing too scientific here, but there are a bunch of markers that do place him as a top 15ish guy in terms of "highly valuable seasons produced". Ranks 17th all time in total WS (and that number will likely increase a few spots as the season goes on, and will likely get higher in years future). Ranked 2nd in xRAPM in 2009 (without the 2007 prior weighing him down anymore) and still ranked 1st in RPM in 2018.

Lots of things point to CP3's longevity actually being excellent and actually kind of underrated on this front.

While this is a very good post, I’m not surprised the Clippers at all did well on offense. Prime Blake is one of the best offensive bigs in the league while being mediocre at best on D, and they have other shooters like Redick and Crawford not known for defense. Deandre got a pretty fraudulent DPOY but he always seemed like the type of guy that’s overrated on defense, active from a rebounding/defensive perspective, but not really positionally IQ friendly. In some ways he is valuable on offense getting lots of Oreb and ultra high efficiency. In my opinion they also carried themselves like an offensive first team to me... I believe there are going to be some teams that have worse offenses because they’re burning their legs out on defense and grinding it out with opponents, and other teams that are going to play a finesse skill friendly style, maybe a little bit soft (not because of CP3). I felt like the Clippers were closer to the latter and it’s one of the reasons they didn’t break through in the playoffs.

With that said CP3’s offensive on/off supports he was that good in the regular season, and if anything it just gives more credit to him that the Clippers were good defensively many of their years despite not really having the roster for it, and if one assumes Deandre is overrated on that end. Still, one can say CP3 is a top 20 all time regular season player but not a top 20 player when considering the playoffs

[Baski]

Injuries.

I dont think there's ever been a player of his calibre that gets injured every year like clockwork. He's the ultimate tease.

[Dr Positivity]

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

Man, you are not even a Kobe hater but let the CP3 discussion dominated your judgement. KG was **** all over by Dirk, Duncan, and Shaq in the West.

Duncan and Shaq? I thought we were talking kobe? You realize those are two very different calibres of players right?

With consistently good supporting casts

Shaq had 3, +7 stretches and 2 +5 stretches
Duncan had 3 +7 stretches and 2 +4 stretches
KG improved his team by 7 points, in the playoffs, at his best three year stretch, had two +5 po stretches at the back end of his prime, while dealing with terrible casts for most of his career.

These are players who could do everything for contenders, were still the most impactful players in the league on title teams, had near uninamous mvp's, and whose impact and box based playoff or regular season stats remained consistent regardless of how terrible or good their team did(indicating that their supporting casts were the main variable). These are best in the league level players.


Here's the second tier:

Kobe never exceeded +4 playoff impact despite having several shots at the apple with good-great supporitng casts for the vast majority of his prime.
Dirk managed a +4 playoff run once. He played with good to great casts for the majority of his prime.
CP3 also managed a +4 playoff run.

No matter the cast, no matter the situation, no matter how good or how bad there were teammates were, they NEVER crossed into the next tier. Whether you use metrics that predict that come directly from winning or you simple arbitrary box compositiones that specficially overrate one-way, one dimensional offensive studs, they never had an especially strong case for MVP, and they never approached the level of the first tier of player.

Kobe was never the best player in the league, because when he peaked, the first tier of players(lebron, kg) and even members of the second tier of players(nash, cp3) blocked or contested him. It's bad luck for sure, but it can happen when you're a second tier star.

What are these numbers based off? The Lakers were +9 with Kobe on the court in 08 for example, and the Mavs were +17 with Dirk in 2011.

[iggymcfrack]

I don't think there's any reasonable argument that he's top 20 unless you just ignore that he hampered his teams playoff chances with injuries several times throughout his career.

09
12
14
15
17
18

These are all years where he either missed playoff games, or had some major lingering injury where it effected his play. That's like over half his prime.

I feel like if this was any other player people would be docking him big time. And that doesn't even include the plethora of regular season games missed.

I guess if we completely throw durability out the window, yeah i suppose he has a case.

This is wildly unfair. Chris Paul never missed a single playoff game in his career until 2015. In 2014 when you’re trying to blame some “injury” for hobbling him, he had an absolutely incredible playoffs. He outplayed Steph Curry head-to-head in Round 1 knocking him out, and in Round 2, he outplayed Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The Clippers dominated the Thunder in the minutes he was on the floor and only lost the series due to being completely destroyed in the few minutes Paul was on the bench. For the entire postseason, Paul averaged over 36 MPG playing at least 40 minutes every close game in the second round. When he was on the floor, the Clippers point differential was +6.9. When he sat, it was -15.7.

In 2017, Chris Paul played all 7 playoff games averaging over 37 minutes per game with a PER of 27.8. That’s better than Kobe or Larry Bird ever did for a single postseason their entire careers. The only players who averaged better than that for their careers were Jordan, Mikan, and LeBron. Sorry he “only” played at a top 5 all-time level due to injury. (Not that PER’s everything, but Paul’s playmaking and defense are excellent so he’s not generally a player to be overrated by box score metrics.)

The only years you can legitimately come at Chris Paul for injuries are 2015 and 2018. In each season he missed TWO playoff games for a total of FOUR. Steph Curry missed many more games than that in multiple postseasons where he ended up winning rings, but he had good teammates to carry him through when he didn’t play so no one cares. CP3 had really unfortunate timing with an injury the one time he had good enough teammates to have a chance to win it all, but he really hasn’t been particularly injury prone over the course of his career.

[Lost92Bricks]

While this is a very good post, I’m not surprised the Clippers at all did well on offense.

You should be surprised because you said yourself that their two best players had bad chemistry.

The Clippers didn't have any great scorers, apparently didn't have chemistry and still had the league's best offense twice. I wonder how they were able to score all those points?

[iggymcfrack]

For me, CP3 was basically a top 5 player for 11 years straight. Bird can't say that and most others Point Guards sans Magic/Oscar can claim that as well.

the top 20 all time is reserved for guys who were "top 1" in the league. not top 5. not always a bridesmaid. not always short of being good enough to carry a team to a title.

CP is a top 50 player for sure. and yeah stats and advanced stuff measuring impact matter. but you also need to have won a title or have been the leagues best player once you start talking about top 10 or top 20 ever.

Kobe might never have been top 2 in a given season, but he’s still a top 20 all-time player due to his longevity of being really close for a long time in a tough era.

Likewise, I can’t single out one year where Paul was the best player in the league, but he was top 3, top 5 for sooooo long going against the GOAT I still have him top 10. It wasn’t his fault his teams didn’t make the Finals. He had fantastic box and impact stats throughout the playoffs. He always played at a championship level and it was just unfortunate that he got injured the one year he had teammates good enough to actually win the big one.

[70sFan]

What is Paul's case over

Kareem
James
Russell
Jordan
Duncan
Wilt
Hakeem
Shaq
KG?

These are 9 players and then yous have a lot of guys with excellent cases over Paul. I enjoy CP3 in top 20, but top 10? It's too much for me...

[Pg81]

And got **** on by an over-the-hill KG in the playoffs. He didn't help his lesser team as much as KG helped a 66 win champion. and he couldn't even push the celts as hard as fetus lebron did. The media gave him a legacy MVP, and he was third fiddle at his coronation.

Man, you are not even a Kobe hater but let the CP3 discussion dominated your judgement. KG was **** all over by Dirk, Duncan, and Shaq in the West.

Duncan and Shaq? I thought we were talking kobe? You realize those are two very different calibres of players right?

With consistently good supporting casts

Shaq had 3, +7 stretches and 2 +5 stretches
Duncan had 3 +7 stretches and 2 +4 stretches
KG improved his team by 7 points, in the playoffs, at his best three year stretch, had two +5 po stretches at the back end of his prime, while dealing with terrible casts for most of his career.

These are players who could do everything for contenders, were still the most impactful players in the league on title teams, had near uninamous mvp's, and whose impact and box based playoff or regular season stats remained consistent regardless of how terrible or good their team did(indicating that their supporting casts were the main variable). These are best in the league level players.


Here's the second tier:

Kobe never exceeded +4 playoff impact despite having several shots at the apple with good-great supporitng casts for the vast majority of his prime.
Dirk managed a +4 playoff run once. He played with good to great casts for the majority of his prime.
CP3 also managed a +4 playoff run.

No matter the cast, no matter the situation, no matter how good or how bad there were teammates were, they NEVER crossed into the next tier. Whether you use metrics that predict that come directly from winning or you simple arbitrary box compositiones that specficially overrate one-way, one dimensional offensive studs, they never had an especially strong case for MVP, and they never approached the level of the first tier of player.

Kobe was never the best player in the league, because when he peaked, the first tier of players(lebron, kg) and even members of the second tier of players(nash, cp3) blocked or contested him. It's bad luck for sure, but it can happen when you're a second tier star.

Apart from the early years with Nash, of which the first two were not even close to prime level, he never played with a good much less a great cast. Even the 2011 Mavs went 2-7 when Dirk was out. The majority of the time Dirk led a mishmash of has beens and never beens to great success. That 67 Mavs team had no buisness winning 67, and Dirk is one of only 4 players to lead his team to ten consecutive 50+ win seasons, 3 of which were 60+. The other players were Bill Russell, Tim Duncan and Karl Malone. Of those players only Dirk did this without having an all star level team mate for most of his prime and Mavs Nash was not as good as MvP Suns Nash. On top of that Dirk did this in the stacked western conference not the inferior eastern conference. Lastly, Dirk was easily as good as KG so yeah he very well is "next tier" player who only won once he had 3 all star level team mates in a weaker conference around him.
By the way, this is how you quote people and want to focus on a single issue.

[iggymcfrack]

Injuries.

I dont think there's ever been a player of his calibre that gets injured every year like clockwork. He's the ultimate tease.

He’s played in 102 out of a possible 106 playoff games. Clockwork my ass. He’s actually been quite durable over the course of his career. He just had really unfortunate timing in 2018.