That’s a difference of 12 years between his first and latest All-Star campaign, proving just how incredible his longevity has been, especially when you factor in his physical shortcomings. It was the 10th All-Star showing of Paul’s career, the first of which came in his age-22 season back in 2007-08. He’s had an unreal sustained level of excellence…īecause of his size and injury history (nothing major, but he has missed a lot of time throughout his career with random knocks), not many expected Paul to be this good today, at 35 years of age.Īnd yet, Paul is coming off an All-Star campaign this season – in the Western Conference, no less – where he averaged 17.6 points and 6.7 assists and led a young-but-hungry Thunder team to a playoff appearance as the West’s No. It’s just really difficult, if not borderline impossible, for an undersized point guard like Paul to be the best player on a title team. Nevertheless, Paul has always performed at an extremely high level in the postseason, he’s just very seldom had a championship-caliber team around him to help reach the top of the mountain. It is fair to knock Paul on his durability in the postseason, which became especially problematic in 2018 when his team at the time, the Rockets, had their best chance to take down the dynastic Golden State Warriors featuring Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, taking a 3-2 series lead in the Western Conference Finals before losing the final two games of the series. Paul ranks 12th in career assist average in the playoffs and 10th in steals.Įven this year, in a hard-fought Game 7 defeat to the heavily favored Houston Rockets, a game that few even expected the Thunder to reach, Paul made history by becoming the oldest player to have a triple-double in a Game 7. Paul’s postseason shortcomings – never making it to the Finals, only reaching the conference finals once, getting injured in huge playoff moments – are overstated, as the Wake Forest product is actually extremely productive in postseason competition, averaging 21 points, 8.2 assists and 2.1 steal over 108 playoff appearances. This is true for Paul more than any other active player. In sports culture today, it has become all too common to criticize players if they never win a championship, even if they went above and beyond what was expected of them in the playoffs and it really wasn’t their fault. One could easily make the case that because we underrate Paul so much, we didn’t realize he might be able to singlehandedly make Oklahoma City a better team, despite what they lost from their roster last summer.īelow, more reasons why we think the future Hall-of-Famer is so underrated.ĭespite lack of rings, he’s a beast in the playoffs… Little did we know the Thunder would actually improve upon their win percentage under Paul’s leadership and production, comfortably make the playoffs and push further than anyone expected them to before the season tipped off. That was the logical assumption, too, since Oklahoma City had just traded away Russell Westbrook, arguably the franchise’s most accomplished player ever, and Paul George, who finished third in the prior season’s MVP vote. When Chris Paul was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder last offseason, many expected him to get shipped to another team quickly since the Thunder appeared headed towards an immediate and complete rebuild.
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