The Chris Paul Factor

Chris Paul, a video appreciation (Via Chris Hayes):



The risk posed by Paul's success, however, is that it's going to lead analysts to look at other guys who are excellent ballhandlers who make the occasional "ohmygod I can't believe that's possible" move and who are too short to succeed in the NBA, and conclude that they can have Paul-like levels of success. But it's impossible to tell from watching highlights and very hard to tell from watching games, the small-but-real differences that have made Paul's 2007-2008 campaign much better than Allen Iverson's. Paul pulls down 6.2 percent of available rebounds, Iverson grabs 3.8 percent. Iverson's effective field goal percentage is 49 percent, Paul's is 52 percent. These are very small numbers, but they add up to large differences over the course of a season and it's not really clear that even Paul will be able to continue performing on this level, much less that other undersized guys will be able to find enormous success.