3. Chris Paul, Houston Rockets
Chris Paul‘s new contract is ridiculous, and will pay him absurd amounts of money through his age-37 season, but the Houston Rockets had no choice if they wanted to keep their title window open. For our purposes, that’s all that really matters, since CP3 is still a top-three point guard in this league when healthy.
That last bit provides a bit of a caveat, since it was a hamstring injury that ended Paul’s season in the Western Conference Finals, along with his team’s. However, the Rockets had a 3-2 series lead when CP3 went down, and though they lost some wing depth and defense over the summer, this team still figures to be the Golden State Warriors’ greatest challenger.
Despite there only being one ball to go around, James Harden and Paul flourished in their first season together, with the former winning MVP honors and the latter putting up 18.6 points, 7.9 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game on 38 percent shooting from deep. Staggering these two floor generals just works, and Paul’s game should age well as long as he can just stay healthy.