The point guard position is no longer just a person you can rely on to dribble the ball up the court and make passes to get scorers the ball. There are a myriad of ways in which a point guard can attack a defense. They are allowed to have different skill sets that give a coach plenty of options on both ends of the floor. Point guards can be good or bad facilitators, high volume or low volume scorers, good or irrelevant defenders, and anywhere in between. You can mix and match a point guard's skill set like you're accessorizing a Build-a-Bear.

While point guards come in all different shapes and skill sets now, the ability to create scoring opportunities for everybody on the floor remains the best threat at the position. When you factor in today's rules that virtually make one-on-one defense or pick-and-roll defense as the man being picked impossible, these team shot-creators end up being the most important players in the NBA.

Friday night, two teams that are attempting to make the next step toward becoming title contenders in their respective conferences are fueled by two point guards that are the best in the business at dissecting a defense with their passing while maintaining a constant threat of being able to score. Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers and John Wall of the Washington Wizards will face off in Washington D.C. to keep building on the good play they've had early this season.

Both Paul and Wall do virtually the same thing in very different ways. Paul is like a surgeon on the court, carefully creating incisions in the opposing defense with precise dribbling and meticulous passing angles. With Wall, it's like watching someone hacking their way through the jungles of South America with a machete. His speed is accelerated enough to prompt debates about the fastest man in the league and he possesses a first step quick enough to believe he may have teleported on the court.

Let's start with CP3 and his historic control of the basketball this season. His numbers through the Clippers' first 21 games of the season are routinely impressive. This is the fifth season in which he's averaged at least 18.0 points, 10.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.0 steals. Besides Paul, only Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas has been able to do that in a season and he only did it once. CP3 is working on his fifth season of doing that and this time he's shooting a career-high 51.3 percent from the field.

Paul's impressive season doesn't end there though. To go with his 10.1 assists per game (good for fourth in the NBA), Paul is averaging just 1.7 turnovers too. That's almost a six-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio by Paul. Chris Paul is currently the only player in NBA history to average more than 10 assists while averaging fewer than 1.8 turnovers (Gilbert Arenas did it once but he only played two games, so it doesn't count). Paul is joined by Muggsy Bogues as the only players in NBA history to average more than 10.0 assists and fewer than 2.0 turnovers, but Paul (18.0) is averaging nearly double the points Bogues did (9.4).

The Clippers' point guard is obviously very important to the team's offense and direction. They're 20 points per 100 possessions better (116.7) with Paul in the game than when he's on the bench (96.0). His two-man game with Blake Griffin fuels the majority of the offense with 46.0 percent of Paul's passes going to Griffin. Nearly 60.0 percent (113 of 192 makes for 58.8 percent) of Griffin's made field goals have come on a pass from his point guard. 91 of those 113 made field goals are assisted.

Paul also assists heavily to J.J. Redick (47.9 percent of made baskets) and DeAndre Jordan (32.5 percent). He also surprisingly makes Matt Barnes a lethal shooter from 3-point range. Barnes is just a 35.6 percent shooter from 3-point range this season but on passes from Paul that percentage goes up to 41.4 percent. And all of this is happening with Paul posting the lowest usage rate (21.9 percent) since he joined the Clippers. His playmaking for Los Angeles is all about precision and efficiency while never coughing up the ball.

Wall, on the other hand, is a bit more reckless with the ball, but his aggressive style of play is what seems to blitz the opposing defense into making mistakes with their rotations far more often than Wall makes a mistake. The big turnoffs with Wall's stats this year are the 3-point percentage (down from 35.1 percent last season to 32.1 percent this season) and the 4.0 turnovers he's averaging.

However, he doesn't take that many 3-point shots (2.7 per game) and he makes so many great plays with the pass that you can live with the 2.5 turnovers per game he makes with a bad pass. Wall's season is looking pretty special in a historic sense as well. Remember the club CP3 and Thomas were in a few paragraphs ago? Wall's averages of 18.1 points, 10.4 assists (second in the NBA), 4.9 rebounds, and 2.1 steals (third) have him on pace to join that club by the end of this season.

The Wizards haven't had the luxury of health or a top 10 player like Griffin to flank their incredible point guard. They've missed Martell Webster all season long, Bradley Beal has played in just 12 of the 21 games, and Nene has only made it into 14 games. The Wizards have been limping to a certain extent, and yet Wall has them right in the thick of the race for the top spot in the Eastern Conference at 15-6 -- just a 0.5 game out of the top spot.

Wall hasn't had that one go-to star to play next to him and form a heavy-handed two-man game like Paul, forcing the Wizards' leader to distribute the wealth of passes much more evenly to his teammates. Paul Pierce leads his Wizards' teammates with 20.9 percent of Wall's passes coming to him. Beal is quickly moving up the charts, already in second with 17.7 percent of the passes. Beal also shoot 50.0 percent on 3-point attempts when Wall sets him up. And Wall sets up Marcin Gortat on 37.7 percent of his buckets this season.

Paul and Wall are also first and second, respectively, in secondary assists per game, and Wall leads the NBA in free throw assists per game (a pass that leads to a foul on a shot attempt and the shooter makes at least one free throw). 

As brilliant as Wall has been passing the ball, defensively he's been just as destructive. It's not just the steals either. His ability to pressure the ball for 94 feet, gamble at the right times for steals, and close out on shooters is just about perfect. Players shoot just 39.1 percent from the field when he's defending the shot, and that number drops to 28.7 percent beyond 15 feet. Only Eric Bledsoe has more blocked shots (17) than Wall (14) for players that are 6'4" or shorter this season.

Friday night, we'll see a real contrast of styles with a virtual mirror image for production. John Wall and Chris Paul have been arguably the two best point guards in basketball this season and I'm not sure how you decipher which one has been the best. Perhaps, it's just a matter of taste in how the new age point guard approaches the game and gets the job done.

Wall and Paul have been brilliant in different ways. (USATSI)
Wall and Paul have been brilliant in different ways. (USATSI)