What Ayton is good at, not many players are good at. Big being able to finish around the rim and such soft touch like that. Think because his skillset is so unique in the modern game it makes him seem better than he is. I'd still pay him if I were Phx, you got CP still and you don't have cap space anyway.

He's 23, on a 30M year type deal he can just be moved in 1-2 years anyway. But definitely a rough playoffs for him.

I dunno re CP inj, obviously I'm sure he wasn't 100% but meh, he sucked gm 2-4 vs a far inferior defense and an easier matchup in NO too. I do think as weird as it sounds he is kinda more of a regular season player at this point. His value goes down in the postseason, although still very good. Similar to Gobert.

Suns are either letting him walk if, for example, the Spurs offer him a MAX, OR they will S&T.

Spurs may also facilitate a S&T and send back Poeltl.

Chris Paul is the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NBA.

.

That’s funny. I think he’s one of the most overrated players of all time. But to each his own.

Good **** on regular season improvement. How does he fare when the games matter?

Do you have these metrics? Way, way behind is disrespectful, but it's unclear if you are saying people think he's just as good as Magic and Steph or people think that he isn't way, way behind both of them because the former is ridiculous and the latter is what I expect most people to think.


He's made bad teams average, average teams good, and made this Suns team one of the best teams in the past few years. They were in the finals last year and the best record this year without a top 10 player. CP3 teams are consistently overachieving, and that's why they lose frequently in these high leverage spots.

This is an article from 2017, but I’m guessing not much has changed, given his success in Phx.

https://deadspin.com/the-chris-paul-...1797409440/amp

I think I’ve read there are also other analytic indicators of him being the GOAT PG, but I can’t be bothered to research it all right now.

I think some people (as evidenced by Rick’s post) think Chris is possibly the GOAT PG. I also don’t think he’s close to Magic or Steph, and I knock him that far down simply because of winning time metrics. And I’m fine if that’s disrespectful.

What kind of troll actually believes Paul is better than Magic or Steph. That's one of the dumbest things I've heard- analytics or not.

steph is shooting guards because he shoots, magic has aids

And cmon, Ayton is pretty damn good. He actually had a pretty good playoffs as far as my memory serves and bailed them out a couple of games with a lot of big buckets around the basket. Dude is 23, and plays the position well for the modern game. He is certainly much more skilled than D. Jordan Mullen. Hes worth 30 million a year and him, Booker, and Bridges are a great young core going forward. Overreactions guys.

Those phoenix tickets must had the fastest drop in value ever for a 7th game series .

I pick Isiah Thomas before CP3.

How does he look in playoffs only analytics? What are his numbers in NBA finals?

In defense of the overrated, insufferable choker, the Mavs game plan was to make DeAndre ayton beat them, to take cp3 out of it. Against him is that the plan worked.

Agree. CP2 forever. He's a great regular season player. That's it.

I'm just glad I got the chance to see Isiah Thomas in his prime. Dude was 5'11" without shoes on and probably pound for pound the best player in NBA history. What he accomplished at his size in college and the NBA will never happen again.

The fact that the analytics has CP2 ahead of Isiah is all I need to know that they're a joke. CP2 is better at Isiah at making commercials but he's not half the player Isiah was. Isiah is also the greatest competitor and leader I have ever seen in sports. Two areas CP2 fails at massively. There's no analytics to capture that.

I thought I was the only smart guy here!

Agree but after the playoffs last year people were talking him as a top 20-25 player going forward, looked awesome vs NOP when Book was out, started series great against Mavs....

Then Maxi Kleber basically took his soul, his lunch and probably his girl too if he has 1, not sure on that.

Not the best way to go out.


Also, unless it is Joker/Embiid and theyre just so good you gotta build around em, man I am just not a fan of guys who can't be apart of a versatile defense that can do everything in modern times. But ya, I'd still pay him and figure it out later.

Bam/Horford/R Will/Dray and even Kleber this year....At the highest levels, defensive versatility and the ability to do everything is so valuable. Not sure he fits that mold.

halleluka

He fares very well on the whole - his playoff statistics are among the best of all time, both on a rate-basis and volume basis.

He has some high profile chokes in the playoffs but he’s also gotten really unlucky with injuries to both himself and teammates also. So his playoff career overall is seen as a failure (which I suppose it is to an extent) but he’s not a player who’s numbers have fallen off dramatically in the playoffs compared to the regular season. His stats are elite (both the normal and analytics variety) and but he’s not been durable enough, his teammates have gotten hurt at bad times and he’s played against really high levels of competition. Of course not being able to get over the hump is a ding against him to some degree but you can’t handwave away what he’s done basically breaking the age model for guards and how much better he generally makes his teams.



I think he’s more skilled than Jordan (and doesn’t shoot 40% FT which helps) and worth 30 million based on comparative contracts/NBA perception of worth etc. I just think his overall value caps out around DeAndre which isn’t a huge slight - DeAndre had a three year run finishing 3rd/1st/3rd all-nba around a 3 BPM.

I’m just not a fan of his type of player. Nothing against him personally. If he can learn to shoot threes consistently which isn’t outside of the realm of possibility he could become more valuable.

I agree Booker/Bridges/Ayton is a fine young core but without CP they aren’t contending or frankly getting close to contending.


Better way to put it really, particularly the last paragraph. Doesn’t seem like he gets there to me but I admit he’s very young still so it’s possible, maybe if he gets an elite new coach its probably his best shot. Hopefully there’s another Udoka out there.

Suns up for a S&T for Mitchell Robinson!?

This loss wasn't all on Chris Paul. Booker and Ayton were awful, and CP3 is 37 years old. At this point, CP3 is never going to win an NBA title as a starting PG. He either will pick one up as a senior citizen ring chaser or retire without a ring like Barkley, John Stockton, Karl Malone, etc.

But I can't shake the feeling that CP3 is less than ideal as the leader of a playoff team, even during his prime.

The NBA regular season is a mental grind. The NBA playoffs are a HUGE mental grind. In an ideal world, the team leader makes the playoffs less of a grind for the other guys on the team. Some team leaders do it by being joyful (Curry, Magic, Isiah Thomas). These are the guys who just seem to have a lot of fun playing basketball, even under the pressure of the playoffs. Others do it simply by virtue of being singular talents with absurd usage (Lebron, Giannis, Jordan). And some team leaders are a little bit of both (Shaq).

I'm not saying that you must have a team leader who fits this mold in order to win a championship. But it makes life easier.

Chris Paul is one of the least joyful elite players in history. And he obviously has never been a talent on the level of someone like Lebron or Jordan.

Watching the NBA playoffs is a mental grind

Scalding hot take here: Chris Paul - properly rated. He’s like a top 40ish guy with limitations, who has lost time and again in soul crushing manner.

As a Clipper homer, I wanted him to win one but also kinda expect the wheels to fall off at some point. These Suns losses aren’t “on him” like those Clips chokes were, but the pattern is like a decade long now.

LOL Chris Paul

I agree he’s not really an ideal best player on a title winner, but I think that’s primarily due to him being a 6’ PG. His on-court antics are bad which doesn’t make him an ideal leader, but he does at least seem like a great teammate. We haven’t really heard of anyone not getting along with him with the exception of Harden and we all know how that turned out. He has limitations for sure but he has nearly maxed out what his type of player can do in the modern NBA, which is very impressive at his age.

My primary issue is not really with his player evaluation but him taking all the heat at his age rather than the max guys in their primes and people counting it against his “legacy”. That’s just a tired narrative to me for basically all players. You shouldn’t get penalized for playing at an all-NBA level in your late 30s instead of mailing it in or retiring.

I also don’t really think he’s overrated in that the casual public probably doesn’t place him all-time anywhere near where they should. I’d have to look at a list and think about it but to me he’s likely around top 25 all time and could be a bit lower depending on how you weight playoff success, etc. He’s apparently rated quite poorly by most itt and even worse by the general media I think. The nerds are closer to being right than the Mad Dog Russo’s of the world for sure. He’s one of the more underrated guys in history I think.

Him being a 6' PG of course is a big factor. At this point, his age is an even bigger factor.

I don't think he is disruptive, unfair, or plays the wrong way. In that sense, I agree that he is a good teammate. He just seems like a joyless taskmaster, and I wonder if that is a problem in a situation where the grind is already close to overwhelming.