celtics543 wrote:So now I ask both of you to ask who from my list you're taking off to put on Chris Paul? You can say he's a top 20 player of all time but I feel like very often on this site guys throw out "top 20 player of all time" without any real thought and all of a sudden there's 50 guys that are "top 20 of all time".
Well, i didn't specifically say i'd put CP3 in my Top 20. I was just addressing how i disagree with your point about how 'if he's one of the best players ever, then he should have won a title/MVP to prove it. MVP's are wildly affected by things like high raw stats, win record (which means guys with bad/mediocre supporting casts are at a disadvantage), narratives and relative competition. For example, Derrick Rose's 2011 season was worse than multiple seasons from Paul, yet, Rose managed to walk away with an MVP because of the things i mentioned above. He had an elite defensive cast that boosted his team record above 60W, he had relatively weak competition that year and he benefited from the anti-LeBron villain agenda...
Same with titles to a certain extent. Did you think Paul wanted to get hurt during the Playoffs intentionally throughout his career? No. I realize he's injury prone, but sometimes the difference was literally holding on for a couple of more weeks... I don't want to dance around hypothetical here, but if fate permitted, and Paul's body could hold on for another two weeks in 2018, he could have been viewed as a champion who defeated arguably the best team of all-time. If you want to criticize his ability to stay healthy, fine, but criticizing his ability to play high level basketball on various teams, with various players and casts would just be wrong at this point. Too much evidence vouching for him.
Also, Chauncey Billups wasn't the best player on the Pistons. He may have have been their best offensive player but Ben Wallace was the best player on that team. Defensive player of the year and was most responsible for slowing down Shaq in the Finals. You could even argue Sheed as most important player on that team. Regardless that Pistons team was an aberration.
Technicalities... The point was that we've witnessed lesser players to Paul being capable of being the best players on championship teams. Yes, it's obviously NOT common... because most of the time, the guys winning championships are the caliber of Jordan, LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, Magic, Bird etc., but even then they need great casts and health to compete... You can switch Billups with Gus Johnson if you want... You think Gus Johnson who won a title in 1979 was a better player than Paul? How about whoever the best player on the 2014 Spurs was... was he better than Paul? Was Isiah Thomas better than Paul? Based on what? Having a better team?
As for not overlapping perfectly with Nash. I guess what I'm saying is that they both played in the modern era and Nash walked away with 2 mvp's while CP3 is walking away without any. I could argue he should've won one in 2008 over Kobe and KG but to say 2005 and 2008 are so far apart that it's ludicrous to compare Nash and Paul is a little hard to understand.
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You are making it seem like Nash was some bum. ''IF NASH COULD WIN 2 MVP's THEN ANYONE CAN.'' First, Nash is one of the greatest offensive players of all-time, secondly he had a supporting cast good enough to win 55 or more games in multiple seasons, while Paul didn't. When Paul played in New Orleans, he had the stats/impact to rival any player in the league but didn't come close to winning the MVP outside of 2008 because his team was ass. Paul had a better season in 2009 than in 2008, but he was 5th in 2009 because his team had a worse record and the competition was tougher (arguably the best seasons from LeBron, Wade, Kobe, Dwight) all competing for the MVP...
Check the competition level when Nash was winning MVPs mid 2000's (lots of guys ala KG and Kobe were on weak teams, Shaq was on the decline), and then go look at what Paul had to compete against for the award. Basically his whole career overlapped with LeBron. Then you had peak Kobe, Wade, Dwight, Durant, Russ, Harden, Steph, Kawhi... It doesn't help that CP3's game isn't flashy nor does he put up high volume numbers to get the job done. The fact that Melo got more MVP votes than Paul in 2013 is a disgrace to the league. Not even on the same stratosphere as players, and don't let the team record fool you, the Clippers were a much better team that year, they just played in a harder conference, that's why they only won 2 more games...
