Has former Suns PG Chris Paul done ‘it’ again with the Spurs?

We know what “it” is at this point, right?

Chris Paul’s arrival in Phoenix undeniably changed the trajectory of the Suns, leading to a surprise NBA Finals run alongside Devin Booker a year after the former shockingly took the Oklahoma City Thunder to the playoffs after many wrote him off in his mid-30s once his stint in Houston had soured.

Paul’s the only player who even has an argument to making as much of an impact as Booker did on revitalizing the Phoenix franchise, and that argument ends once it’s brought up that Paul came to play with Booker, but what he did for the Valley remains.

After a brief detour in Golden State coming off the bench for the Warriors last season, Paul signed with the rebuilding San Antonio Spurs at 39 years old. And wouldn’t you know it, 20 games in, they are 11-9 in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. Phoenix gets its first look at them on Tuesday.

Those two franchises he helped turn and flip expeditiously is happening in a different fashion this time around, though. Paul is 39, so there’s no last hurrah All-NBA season coming.

He’s putting up a modest 10.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.8 turnovers per game on 45.3% shooting. (A wacky wrinkle is Paul’s a perfect 31-for-31 from the foul line. According to Stathead, Paul’s 31 straight free throws made 20 games into the year is only the fifth time in league history that’s been done. Jose Calderon knocked down 85 in a row to begin the 2008-09 season, one of the sturdiest records in league history.)

As always, Paul’s contributions go far beyond the numbers.

“There’s the cliché of having a coach on the court but I don’t know that I’ve seen anybody that is more true (and) it is not a cliché,” Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer said of Paul. “It’s the real deal. … There’s details that are important and Chris understands them at as high a level as probably any coach, as any player. He’s always a challenge to go against.”

In San Antonio’s fifth win out of its last six on Sunday in Sacramento, Paul orchestrated masterfully across a fourth quarter it is safe to assume he was the offensive coordinator in. He put wing Keldon Johnson in a few spots to keep his scoring rhythm going before attacking the Kings’ switching and lack of doubling on Victor Wembanyama, pinpointing the spacing and matchup he wanted. The Spurs’ immensely frustrating inability to get Wembanyama the ball in the right spots last year is something Paul can sleepwalk through.

Even with some mistakes, like rookie Stephon Castle traveling after Paul beautifully baited the weak-side help defender over or Paul’s own turnover with under a minute to go, San Antonio won in crunch time off his puppeteering we came to know very well here that generated quality look after quality look.

Budenholzer was asked if competing on the game-within-a-game-within-a-game versus a player can be fun as a coach.

“Not with somebody like him,” Budenholzer said. “I don’t want to say he’s usually one or two steps ahead of me but he’s usually one or two steps ahead of me.”

And then there are the numbers.

The Spurs’ new starting lineup, missing the injured Jeremy Sochan and recently returning Devin Vassell with Julian Champagnie and Castle, is crushing teams. It is outscoring opponents by 22.8 points per 100 possessions in 130 minutes, per NBA Stats.

Most importantly, when Paul is out there with Wembanyama, it’s a 10.8 net rating in 433 minutes. When looking at starting PG-C duos with at least 10 games played together, that is the third-highest net rating, trailing only Houston’s Fred VanVleet and Alperen Sengun (12.7, 525 MIN) and Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray (13.3, 303 MIN).

And even with a total lack of experience, the Spurs are 5-3 in games under clutch time with a net rating of 11.7 in 28 minutes. Last year, they were 13-28, the third-worst winning percentage in the NBA.

Chris Paul, Spurs might have right pieces

San Antonio’s biggest challenge this season wasn’t how far Wembanyama could take it, but if it could stumble across enough quality rotation players to put around him and Paul to give the Spurs a real shot at winning this year.

While trouble still tends to come the deeper the Spurs go into their rotation, it still appears they’ve landed a few hits.

Even though the Harrison Barnes trade had more to do with taking on his salary and the asset attached from Sacramento, the 32-year-old in his 13th season (!) can still positively contribute. He recently won Western Conference Player of the Week and has been at a reliable vet shooting 46.2% on 3.3 triples a night.

The biggest revelation has been the 6-foot-8 wing Champagnie (pronounced sham-penny). A waiver claim in February 2023 after the undrafted player out of St. John’s was signed by the Philadelphia 76ers that season, Champagnie started 59 games for San Antonio the following year, which isn’t necessarily the highest compliment given the Spurs’ woeful depth.

But with more capable bodies around, including even more former first-round picks, Champagnie continues to play. He gives the Spurs what they desperately need — reliable wings who can make enough 3s on high volume and defend. On 6.8 attempts per game, he’s at an average 36% that is still more than good enough for San Antonio.

Our collective transfixion on how Paul would help Wembanyama was incorrectly breezing right past a member of the backcourt that is clearly blossoming alongside him.

Castle, the No. 4 overall pick, sounded like such a Spurs-ian player that a rundown of his draft profile made some Suns fans groan. He’s a persistent defender and high-IQ playmaker who rarely looks sped up, with the athletic profile and on-ball skills to hang as a combo guard in either spot. The lack of a jumper, sitting at 28.9% on 3s in the NBA, is the only reason he wasn’t the consensus No. 1 pick.

“It’s crazy for him to be a rookie — I’m so confident when he’s on the court,” Paul said of Castle.

Castle was in the perfect spot last year on a loaded UConn team that didn’t need too much out of a gadget player who could easily do a little bit of everything, instead of landing at a different school that would have asked his talent to carry them. That was a wise choice by him, and he didn’t get to pick where he got drafted, so it was good fortune that San Antonio can develop him similarly.

The results are already flowing. Since Castle moved into the starting lineup 13 games ago, he’s at 14.2 points, 2.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.0 turnovers per game. The high-impact performances have been very encouraging.

a BIG fourth quarter for the rook 😤 @StephonCastle

📊: 19 PTS | 3 REB | 3 AST pic.twitter.com/XgFGuhNPwM

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) November 24, 2024

If it wasn’t for TikTok sensation Jared McCain lighting it up for the 76ers, Castle would be right there at the top of the Rookie of the Year conversation.

This rundown is without getting to Vassell, the Spurs’ second-leading scorer last season who at times in the last two seasons has looked like the most important building block alongside Wembanyama. Or Tre Jones, the younger brother of Tyus who looks poised for a long and successful career as a complementary floor general like his brother. There’s also Johnson, a 25-year-old who looked like a pillar of the rebuild three years ago but is now trying to figure out what his proper role can be as a supplementary reserve.

To simplify it, the Spurs are fine right now. Cleaning the Glass has them 17th in offense and 13th in defense. A star can win a healthy amount of games with that level of average, so a lot of this hinges on Wembanyama.

He’s been about what he was last year statistically, so far not making a galactic leap a handful felt confident was coming, his declaration of imminent takeover. Perhaps he’s building momentum towards that, as in his last seven games he’s posted 32.1 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.1 steals and 2.9 blocks with a field goal percentage of 54.1% and a 3-point volume of 12.3 3PA/G yielding 40.7% returns.

With all that said, to answer the original question, perhaps “it” is happening! It won’t reach the highs the Suns did, but something in the vein of the Thunder year is totally in play. What will happen, though, is as it is right now in Phoenix and Oklahoma City, we will talk about in a few years time how Paul’s fingerprints are all over the Spurs’ rise. And on an individual basis, just like what Paul did for Booker and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he will do for Wembanyama.

NBA Cup scenarios, tiebreakers for Suns

Least we forget! Tuesday is the final day of group play in the NBA Cup.

The Suns, slotted in the West’s Group B, are 2-1 and realistically need to win to have any shot at advancing. The issue is the Thunder are also 2-1, Phoenix lost to them to give up the tiebreaker and OKC plays Utah. So, unless the Jazz pull off an upset, the Suns need to go the wild card route.

That is in control of the Dallas Mavericks, who are 2-1 and have a point differential of +41, which is the tiebreaker beyond head-to-head record. With Phoenix at +19, things would have to get wonky for it to move on in a scenario when both the Suns and Mavericks win. Dallas plays Memphis, so Phoenix has a real shot there. The only other potential party involved would be the 2-1 Portland Trail Blazers (!) but they are at -5.

There is an outcome when the Suns lose and still advance, but for the sake of our own sanity, we will leave that up to fate.

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