Starting a team today? Give me Paul to point the way
Freeman: The Dwight stuff
The assignment, if we chose to accept it, was to pick one player we'd build an NBA team around if we were starting from scratch today. One caveat: You can't have LeBron James.
That's appropriate, because when the league gathers in Dallas for All-Star weekend next year, it'll be less than five months before the most anticipated free-agent chase in NBA history. About 20 teams will be pursuing LeBron by then, but only one can have him.
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| Chris Paul's skills can dazzle any opponent -- even Dwight Howard. (Getty Images) |
Also, free agency be damned. Forget about contracts, early termination clauses, player options and the rest of it. Just man up and pick the player (other than LeBron) you'd want to build a team around.
Freeman picked Dwight Howard. A fine choice. But give me Chris Paul and I'll go hunt down my rings.
A dominant big man is one can't-miss championship ingredient, and a pretty obvious one if you ask me. Too obvious. All you have to do is peruse your trusty Official NBA Guide to see that since Michael Jordan's last championship in 1998, only two teams -- the Detroit Pistons in '04 and last season's Boston Celtics -- have won the title without someone named Tim Duncan or Shaquille O'Neal.
But please, let's not forget that Duncan had one ring when the Spurs got Tony Parker. Duncan has won three since. And whose name comes first when you say Stockton and Malone? Have we already forgotten that the best player on the planet before Jordan came along was Magic Johnson?
There's nothing wrong with a great big man, but we're in the early stages of a guard renaissance in the NBA. The rules have gradually become more favorable to perimeter players; much like the NFL, which basically no longer lets defensive backs touch receivers, the NBA has realized the stylistic benefits of creative guard play. The toughest position on the floor to fill with a championship-caliber talent is point guard, and look at the collection of brilliant ones we have: Paul, Parker, Deron Williams, Devin Harris and Rajon Rondo -- plus wily veterans named Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Chauncey Billups, not to mention up-and-comers Derrick Rose, Rodney Stuckey, Jameer Nelson and Russell Westbrook.
Freeman can have his muscle-head in the Superman cape. I'll take the guy who makes the engine go.
Once you decide to build around a perimeter player -- a strategy that worked just fine for Jordan's Bulls and Isiah Thomas' Pistons before Duncan and Shaq came along -- you have to take a long, hard look at Wade. If you can't have LeBron, D-Wade is a pretty good consolation prize. He'd give you a scorer/penetrator from the shooting guard spot, and he already has a championship on his résumé.
That's fine, but I'll take Paul, who at 23 is three years younger and plays the more important position.
Why Paul over Howard, who's also 23 and a foot taller?
Because given the choice, I'll take the best point guard on the planet over the best big man on the planet. You can win with a great point guard and solid complementary pieces. You can't win with a great big man who has no one to get him the ball. And you can't win when a dozen other teams have a good-to-great point guard and you don't.
The Utah Jazz have been to the playoffs 22 out of 25 years. Why? Great point guards -- Stockton and now D-Will. Look at the impact great point guards have on their teams. The Nets before they got Jason Kidd? Abysmal. With Kidd? Two consecutive trips to the Finals. The Hornets won 18 games the year before drafting Paul. In his third year, they won 56 and are on their way to 50-plus again. (As long as he stays healthy. If not, they're going nowhere, which only underscores his value.)
I don't even need to point out that in terms of per-minute efficiency, only LeBron has CP3 beat in the entire NBA. Based on the player efficiency rating (PER) devised by numbers-cruncher John Hollinger, LeBron and Paul are in a class by themselves with PERs over 30. Wade is next at 28.43, followed by Howard at 25.69. The league average is 15.
This is piling on, so we'll just gloss over the point that Howard is a career 60 percent free throw shooter.
I don't know about Freeman, but I could never live down losing a championship at the free throw line. I'll take CP3 and take my chances.
