NBA: Where Does Chris Paul Rank Among Great Modern Point Guards?

Since being drafted fourth overall in the 2005 NBA Draft, Chris Paul has proven himself to be one of the best point guards in the league. His eight All-Star nods, seven All-NBA teams, and two Olympic gold medals speak for themselves.

At 30 years old with 10 NBA seasons under his belt, it’s fair to start comparing him to some of the greatest point guards who we’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.

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In order to compare Paul to the greatest who have ever played point guard in the NBA, we must first establish who the best are. By most accounts, the best point guards of all-time are (in no order) Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, John Stockton, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Walt Frazier, Steve Nash, and Bob Cousy.

For the sake of fair comparison, I’m using Bill Simmons’ cutoff date from his Book of Basketball of 1976 for what is considered the modern era of basketball. The year 1976 signifies the merger between the ABA and NBA and also roughly represents when the game started to resemble the game we see today. For the reasoning behind the seemingly arbitrary cutoff:

"“Say we brought ’61 Wilt to 2009 and matched him against a slew of modern athletes with strength and speed. Wouldn’t they handle him or slow him down? He might average a 20–10 or even a 25–14 nowadays, but with superior talent, smarter defenses, complex coaching strategies and unfavorable-for-him rule changes, hell would freeze over before ’62 Wilt scored 100 in a single game.”"

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Using 1976 as the beginning of the modern era, we’re eliminating Cousy, Robertson, West, and Frazier. That leaves us with Johnson, Thomas, Stockton, Payton, Kidd, Nash, and Paul.

We could also argue that other great point guards of today could be mentioned such as Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, or even Derrick Rose, but from a career standpoint, just don’t have the longevity that Paul has had quite yet. That doesn’t mean they will never be mentioned as all-time greats, they just aren’t right now.

In order for them to be fair, I only used their career stats earned through their age 29 season as it is the latest season for Paul.

This pretty much eliminates Steve Nash from the equation as he was an oddity who peaked on the wrong side of age 30. Through his age 29 season, Nash averaged 12.5 points and six assists per game. Solid numbers for a starting point guard, but not when compared to some of the greatest to ever do it.

After a four-year college career at Santa Clara, Nash didn’t become a full-time starter until 26 after four seasons used mostly off the bench. Nash made the leap from fringe All-Star to MVP when he jumped from the Dallas Mavericks to the Phoenix Suns at age 30 and won back-to-back MVPs during his age 30 and 31 seasons.

Nash was a great player, but through the period of Chris Paul’s career that we’re comparing players to, it would’ve been a stretch to believe Nash deserved to be mentioned as one of the great point guards of the modern era.

That leaves us with Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Gary Payton, and Jason Kidd to measure up against Paul as the best comparisons for great point guards of the modern era. Let’s take a look at how they measure up statistically.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2015.

In this illustrious group, you’ll see that Paul ranks second in points per game, third in assists per game. tied for second in steals per game, fourth in FG%, first in 3P%, first in FT%, third in rebounds, and tied for first in fewest turnovers per game.

What does this mean? Statistically, Paul belongs in the conversation for best (or at least second best, we’ll get to that soon) point guard of all-time. Among all major categories that we deem important for point guards, Paul is either at the top or in the middle of the pack among the greatest to ever do it.

He’s an all-around talent who can score, rebound for his position, pass, shoot well from anywhere on the floor, defend, and do all of this efficiently. There are few point guards better at certain aspects of the game for point guards, but nobody is better at all of them than Chris Paul.

If you were to create a checklist for things you want your point guard to be able to do, Paul would likely get checks in every category.

Team Accomplishments

This category is where it becomes apparent that the best point guard to ever play the game of basketball is Magic Johnson. Rings aren’t everything, but they are extremely important when debating who’s the best to ever do it. Magic Johnson. Johnson won five NBA titles in his career, all of which were in the first 10 years of his career.

Johnson was the Finals MVP in three of those Finals (the others Finals MVPs going to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy). With Abdul-Jabbar, Worthy, and the rest of the Showtime Lakers, Johnson had more talent than any other of the point guards that we’re looking at, but Johnson was the alpha dog on those teams.

When discussing great point guards, it’s a fight for second place behind Magic Johnson.

Other than Johnson, only one other point guard in this mix has an NBA title within the first 10 years of their career. Isiah Thomas and the Bad Boy Pistons bridged the gap with two NBA titles between the Lakers-Celtics dynasty and the Bulls dynasty that followed. Thomas was the MVP of the 1990 NBA Finals while his backcourt mate Joe Dumars took home Finals MVP in 1989.

Jason Kidd won a title with the Dallas Mavericks at age 37. While Kidd was still an effective player, he was a role player and far removed from his prime. Kidd did however take the New Jersey Nets to the Finals twice in the early 2000s with Kenyon Martin as his second-best player.

Gary Payton made the NBA Finals in 1996 but had unfortunate timing by making it the same year the Chicago Bulls went 72-10 and cemented their record-breaking season with an NBA title. Payton did however win a title towards the end of his career with the Miami Heat.

Of the six point guards we’re looking at, only Paul and Stockton didn’t play in the NBA Finals within their first 10 seasons, although Stockton did later make two NBA Finals appearances, losing both times to the Jordan-led Bulls.

Paul’s misfortune of being the only point guard in this mix to have failed to make the NBA Finals does have reasonable excuses. Has Chris Paul ever played for a team with the talent to make it to the NBA Finals? The best record a Paul-led team has finished with is a 57-25 record that the Los Angeles Clippers of 2013-14 finished with.

They lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round. That Thunder team won more games in the regular season despite getting only 46 games of Russell Westbrook, who was healthy for the playoffs. The Thunder were favorites going into the series. That trend is true for the rest of Paul’s career also.

A Chris Paul team has never lost a playoff series to a team that finished that season with a worse record. Paul’s lack of playoff success can be traced mostly to something as simple as he’s just been beaten by better teams or teams with similar talent.

If there is a weakness in Paul’s argument for his place among the best point guards the league has seen in its modern era, it’s the lack of team success.

Individual Accomplishments

Again, Magic Johnson is head and shoulders in front in this group. He’s the only one with an MVP next to his name, two in the range of seasons we’re comparing him with Paul and another after the timeframe we’re using to measure.

The only NBA MVPs of the modern era to have ever played point guard besides Johnson are Nash, Derrick Rose, and Stephen Curry (Allen Iverson is a shooting guard by most people’s definitions of point guard, but that argument’s for another day). Rose hasn’t had the longevity to be included in this argument and neither does Curry.

Many have noted the flaws that come with using All-Star appearances as a measurement of a player’s career (only measures half a season, is part-popularity, etc.) but for the most part, it’s a pretty good indicator of which players matter most. Here are the amount of All-Star appearances for each of the players we’re looking at within their age 29 season.

Isiah Thomas 10 (10 seasons played by age 29 season)
Magic Johnson: 9 (10)
Chris Paul: 8 (10)
Jason Kidd: 6 (9)
Gary Payton: 5 (8)
John Stockton: 4 (8)

Passing

One of the more popular ways to measure a point guard’s passing ability is their assists numbers. Assists aren’t a perfect way of showcasing how a point guard runs an offense, but it is a very accurate way of measuring how well a player sets up teammates for scoring opportunities.

Assists Per Game

John Stockton: 11.3
Magic Johnson: 11.2
Chris Paul: 9.9
Isiah Thomas: 9.7
Jason Kidd: 9.4
Gary Payton: 6.7

Stockton’s passing numbers are incredible. Before his age 29 season, he had a whopping five seasons in which he averaged at least 13.6 assists per game. Those five seasons are good for five of the six top assists per game seasons in league history.  Johnson’s 11.2 assists per game rank just a bit behind Stockton’s, but amazingly Stockton did it in five fewer minutes per game.

Paul, Thomas, and Kidd are all very close, but Paul finished on top at 9.9 assists while averaging 1.5 fewer turnovers per game than Thomas and Kidd.

Payton’s 6.7 assists per game are surprisingly low, but he developed elite passing later in his career as evidenced by his five seasons of eight assists or more per game after our age 29 cutoff point. Still, Payton is far behind the pack in the assists category.

Scoring

Isiah Thomas finally gets to lead a category with his 19.8 points per game scoring average, but it might not be the most impressive. Thomas averaged just 0.3 more points per game than Magic Johnson while taking more than three more shot attempts per game. Johnson scored 19.5 points per game on 53 percent shooting as opposed to Thomas’ 19.8 on 45.9 percent shooting.

Advantage: Magic. You could credit his superior shooting percentage to his size advantage and the fact that Johnson took shots that are closer and statistically better percentage shots. Magic utilized his night-to-night size advantage by posting up smaller defenders closer to the basket and getting high percentage shots in transition.

Paul is next on the points per game list with 18.7 on 47.4 percent shooting. Paul’s era relies more on spacing and shooting ability than any of the other players. Paul’s 36.4 percent on three-point attempts ranks first among our list, followed by Stockton’s 35 percent.

If we’re ranking these guards in terms of scoring ability and efficiency, I’m putting Johnson first. Paul and Thomas are extremely close. Thomas averaged slightly more points on a slightly worse shooting percentage. In the end, I’m giving Paul the advantage because of his superior shooting.

If Thomas came along in today’s game, he’d likely evolve his game and be a better shooter than he was in his own era, where three-point shooting wasn’t nearly as important as it is today. Payton, Kidd, and Stockton are all clearly behind Johnson, Paul, and Thomas. Stockton didn’t score a lot because he didn’t shoot a lot, taking only 8.9 shots per game.

Kidd shot a surprisingly low 40.4 percent. In order, Payton, Stockton, and Kidd finish our point guards in scoring.

Defense

If you want to make the argument that Paul is the best all-around point guard, your argument likely hinges on the fact that defense is 50 percent of the game. At their age 29 season, no point guard has ever made as many appearances on the All-Defensive Team as Paul has. Paul’s seven total appearances rank first ahead of Payton’s five, Kidd’s four, and Stockton’s three.

Johnson and Thomas never made an All-Defensive Team appearance. Thomas is remembered as a solid defender while Johnson was considered a defensive liability for most of his career. Payton holds the rare distinction of winning Defensive Player of the Year as a point guard, something that hasn’t happened since he did it back in 1995-96.

If we’re ranking them defensively, it’s close between Payton and Paul for the best defender of this bunch. Stockton, Kidd, and Payton all rank in the top four in NBA history in the steals category, but even if you combine them, they don’t have more seasons of leading the league in steals than Paul, who has led the league in steals on six different occasions.

Newer advanced stats show just how dominant Paul has been defensively from a man-to-man standpoint. Steals can be deceptive when determining just how effective a player is defensively, but Paul’s impressive ability to swipe the ball from opponents is just as good as his man-to-man defense is.

You can take your pick out of this bunch, but I’m giving the edge to Paul with Payton a close second. I’m 23 years old, so my only firsthand memories of Gary Payton are of his post-Sonics days where he was no longer The Glove. If you want to put Payton as the superior defender, go for it.

Payton has the sole Defensive Player of the Year, Paul has more All-Defensive Teams and steals titles. Kidd was a great defender, but a notch below Paul and Payton. Stockton and Thomas are remembered as solid defenders.  Johnson’s gigantic 6’9 and 220 lb frame worked against him defensively as he wasn’t as quick as some of the smaller guards he was defending.

Playoffs

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Generated 8/5/2015.

Let’s get this out-of-the-way first: Magic Johnson is the best playoff performer of this group and one of the greatest postseason performers in league history. As a rookie, Johnson won Finals MVP averaging 21.5 points, 11.2 rebounds, and 8.7 assists per game. His performance in the closeout Game 6 of the 1980 Finals might be the single greatest performance of all-time.

Johnson famously started at center in the absence of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and put up 42 points, 15 rebounds, and seven assists. In 1987, Magic averaged 26.2 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 13.0 assists in the NBA Finals against the Celtics, which included his Game 4 baby hook in Boston that won the game for the Lakers.

Magic wins this one.

The No. 2 spot is up for grabs, but I’m giving the edge to Isiah Thomas for his big game performances. His numbers are nearly identical to Paul’s other than his poorer shooting percentages, but Thomas gets bonus points for winning two titles and his contributions to those titles. After Thomas, Paul is a clear-cut choice as the third best playoff performer.

No player in NBA history has averaged Paul’s 20.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, 9.5 assists, and 2.3 steals in their career other than Paul. Paul might not have the titles than Johnson or Thomas have, but any attempt to put that blame on Paul is a bit of a reach.

Choosing between Kidd, Payton, and Stockton is a tough decision. Payton’s numbers are probably the worst of this historic bunch, but it doesn’t factor in his defensive presence.

Payton was tasked with defending Michael Jordan in the 1996 NBA Finals and did an impressive job, holding Jordan to 41.5 percent shooting in the series, well below his 49.5 percent rate during that regular season.

While it’s outside of Stockton’s period we’re judging, Payton did dominate Stockton in the 1996 Western Conference Finals, averaging  20.7 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 6.0 assists on 50.5 percent shooting to Stockton’s 9.9 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 7.6 assists on 39.7 percent shooting. I’m giving Payton the edge over Stockton but giving Kidd the edge over Payton.

Kidd’s 17.3 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 9.1 assists make up for his lackluster shooting percentages. Kidd wasn’t the defender that Payton was, but he was pretty damned good himself.

Advanced Stats

Basketball historians, hold on to your seats because these numbers may shock you.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2015.

That’s right. The advanced stats tell us that at this point in Chris Paul’s career, no point guard in the modern era has been better than him.

His player efficiency rating (measure of per-minute production where the league average is always 15) is 25.6, which ranks him sixth all-time behind Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, and Wilt Chamberlain.

His win shares per 48 minutes (estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes) rank way ahead of the pack and third all-time.

Conclusion

We’ve established that Magic Johnson is the greatest point guard of all-time. When measuring the best point guards of the modern era, it’s a fight for second place. Measuring the careers of point guards up to their point of their career that Paul is currently at, he has a claim to be the second greatest point guard of the modern era. It’s a fight that solely exists between Paul and Isiah Thomas.

If you want to give Thomas the nod for his championships, that can be logically understood. Looking at the numbers and success of each player worthy of being included in this argument, it’s hard to argue that Paul is anything less than the third greatest point guard at this point in a player’s career.

What comes from this point going forward is a mystery for Paul. Johnson’s career ended abruptly a few seasons later, Thomas played only three more seasons before retiring. Stockton had steady success deep in his career and his longevity allowed him to become the game’s all-time leader in assists and steals.

Kidd and Payton evolved into solid role players late in their careers, which allowed them each to win a title past their prime. Steve Nash didn’t join the conversation until after he turned 30, winning two MVPs and becoming one of the greatest offensive point guards ever.

In order to cement his legacy as the third greatest point guard of the modern era, Paul must continue to pad his resume’ with accomplishments, none of which would help his case more than an NBA title as a pivotal player. If Paul can do that and continue to play at his current career trajectory, he could very easily finish his career as the second greatest point guard of the modern era.

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