Anyone else finds it amusing that Chris Paul has been historically held back when debating all-time great NBA players due to his durability, but is in the Top 5 in RS minutes played among all players since 2005, and has remained an all-star, Top 10-15 level player, all the way up to the age of 34?
Meanwhile, you have Wade, Rose, Durant, Westbrook, Curry, Kawhi, Thompson, Griffin, Wall etc. all with missing body parts all over the place while not having to carry a bigger burden than Paul through-out most of their careers?
Wade's career was even more decimated by injuries and filled with MIA's and he was basically subconsciously retired as a difference maker at 32 years of age. We all know Rose was basically done at 25, so was Brandon Roy. Durant is still on track to surpass Paul in terms of durability (having only missed significant time in 2015 and last season), but there's still a question mark how good he can be going forward, and we'll see if he still manages to have enough juice at 35 years to be an all-star level player. Curry is the poster boy for non-durability. Kawhi has a degenerative knee that needs to be load managed and rested 25 games per season at age 27... Westbrook is constantly injured and stopped being a star player at 29 years of age. Griffin is constantly injured and has only hit 30. Thompson's career is probably over at 29/30...
We can add Kyrie and Love in this convo as well, always injured and Kyrie is barely 27...
I forgot Dwight Howard. Dwight managed to be an all-star until about 27 years old and then proceed to have a host of injures and never came close to reaching his prime again. He's the same age as Paul right now, but the difference between them is terms of impact/production/value is massive, despite Dwight playing a couple thousand more RS minutes in his career.
Also Carmelo Anthony, although i was never much of a Melo fan, and his weakness is a lot more mental than physical compared to the other guys, but the dude basically stopped being relevant at 30 years of age as well.
In b4 ''CP3 didn't have a lot of 'deep' PS runs!'', which is true when it comes to the Warriors guys and Wade/Durant/Westbrook i guess, but Paul also had less help than those guys for most of his career as well.
Anyway, this was just an epiphany that arrived to me with Klay's recent injury, on top of another injury he already suffered a year prior, reminding me of all the best player in the league getting decimated by injures in the last 15 years... making me think that maybe the elasticity and speed with which the modern game is being played is very likely harder on the joints than people are willing to admit...
LeCyborg is not the norm, he's an outlier freak of epic proportions with Thanos genetics. Everyone else is getting visited by the Grim Reaper frequently in the last 15 years, and with that taken into consideration, Paul's ability to stay a Top 15 player at almost 35 years of age is a testament to his durability, despite missing plenty RS games and crucial PO games, because as we see now, the majority of other stars in the same environment/era are completely breaking down in healthy & ability somewhere between 25-30... Forget about playing at an all-star level at 35. They can consider themselves lucky if they can be a Trevor Ariza level player at 35...
TL;DR - I've pulled a switcheroo on you. You were taught that Paul's weakness is his bad durability, when he's actually the poster boy for good durability among star players in the last 15 years
Funny how perspective works, isn't it?