Phoenix Suns: Chris Paul proves again he is the king of the mid-range

The Phoenix Suns have moved on to the Western Conference Finals where they await the winner of the Utah Jazz and the LA Clippers. Phoenix dispatched the Denver Nuggets with ease in the second round, sweeping them in four straight games.

Over the course of this series, the Suns displayed dominance in a number of ways. They had incredible defense from Deandre Ayton, who slowed and hampered the 2020-21 MVP, Nikola Jokic. They had dynamic scoring from Devin Booker, and they had a masterful display of all-around excellence from Chris Paul.

The Phoenix Suns have moved on to the Western Conference Finals in a decisive fashion and in large part thanks to Chris Paul’s mid-range dominance.

From the beginning of this series until the final buzzer, Paul was a maestro, controlling the game on a string to suit his whims. He was dominant in ways you just don’t see from 36-year-olds in the NBA, at least those not named LeBron James.

Paul averaged 25.5 points, 10.3 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game in the series with rookie-mode video game shooting splits of .627/.750/1.000. In a four-game sample, the Suns were +16.6 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the floor, and he had a staggering effective field goal (eFG) percentage of 67.8.

One of the wonders about Chris Paul is that he defies some of the tenets of modern analytics. As we know, for most players, shots from the mid-range are ill-advised. That’s because most players shoot in that region of the floor at a low rate of efficiency, so finding other ways to score is the best bet.

The league average for mid-range shots is somewhere in the 42-percent range. Considering the fact that this is the least-common area to draw fouls from, and these shots are worth only two points, a mid-range shot at this clip is worth about 0.84 points per attempt. If you wanted to construct the worst offense in NBA history, you would do so by shooting all mid-range shots, and you would blow away all previous records of offensive ineptitude.

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There are a handful of players who buck this trend and are actually so good at shooting from the mid-range that they add massive offensive value. If your average offensive half-court possession is worth around 1 point (it’s not, it’s worth about 0.984 points) then a mid-range jump shot that reliably gives you more than that on average is a huge win on high volume.

For Chris Paul, the mid-range is his office. In the playoffs, he’s shooting 53.7 percent from the mid-range (a staggering 1.074 points per attempt, a better rate than the Brooklyn Nets score at in the half-court this season). Against the Denver Nuggets, he shot 64.7 percent from the mid-range on 34 attempts. Using some quick and dirty math that remembers that two points are less than three, this is equivalent to a 3-point shooter shooting 43.1 percent from behind the arc.

It’s sustainable, too. Since 2017-18, his first season with the Houston Rockets, he’s shooting 54.4 percent from the mid-range, worth 1.088 points. This season alone, he shot 54.6 percent from the mid-range.

There’s a lazy and misguided narrative out there that Chris Paul ignores the so-called analytics and that’s what makes him so good. Rather, instead of this fallacy of an argument, Paul’s ability to shoot from the mid-range adds monumental value to his team’s offense. In essence, he can shoot from areas of the floor that defenses have difficulty guarding effectively, and he does so at such high efficiency that he provides the same value as an above-average 3-point shooter on high volume from virtually anywhere on the floor.

Chris Paul doesn’t thrive in spite of analytics; instead, he’s empowered by them and the very existence of these numbers illustrates what a pure artist he is for the Phoenix Suns.

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