Chris Paul’s resurgence with the Oklahoma City Thunder has been well-noted in his return to All-Star form.
He had such a strong season that Bleacher Report ranked him as the third-best point guard in the league this season, behind just Damian Lillard and Luka Doncic.
The list’s authors, Andy Bailey and Dan Favale, write:
Every so often, a superstar’s decline is not just exaggerated but invented. It is talked about as a matter of fact when, in reality, it has yet to begin.
Such was the plight of Chris Paul entering this season.
Paul was three seasons removed from the end of his All-Star Game streak. He had been traded by the Houston Rockets with the 2024 and 2026 first-round draft picks in addition to the right to first-round pick swaps in 2021 and 2025 for Russell Westbrook as Houston tried to remain in contention.
It turns out, Paul had plenty left in the tank. It seems absurd that Oklahoma City also got two picks for him.
While traditional stats don’t paint Paul in elite company, advanced stats and crunch time numbers show just how valuable he was as the leader of this Thunder team:
Paul continues to take great pleasure in cooking bigs off the dribble when they switch on to him, and he is still a defensive bulldog. Even more impressive is the extent to which the Thunder thrive by leaning on him. Their offensive rating improves by 13.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, the second-largest such swing among anyone who has logged at least 250 minutes. (Of note: Danilo Gallinari, his teammate, is first.)
This dependence carries over to crunch time, where Paul leads Oklahoma City in usage rate by a country mile. He’s slashing 53.5/36.0/93.8 in the clutch, which is just silly. Among every player with similar usage who has made at least five crunch-time appearances, only Joel Embiid owns a higher true shooting percentage, which is even sillier—and the core reason why the Thunder are 29-13 in clutch contests.
Paul is under contract for two more years. He is set to make $41 million next year and $44 million the year after.
While that’s a lot of money, it doesn’t feel like the untenable amount it looked during his Houston days.
Bleacher Report would agree.
