Chris Paul has started every single one of his 1,214 regular season games and 149 playoff games in 18 seasons as an NBA player. His best-suited role with the Golden State Warriors, though, will have him coming off the bench.
Strip ego and history away and the logic is simple. The 38-year-old Paul was swapped in for 24-year-old Jordan Poole largely because he can transform the role Poole played over the last two years into something that will make the Warriors more competitive and mistake-free next season.
Poole moved from the starting lineup — a stretch in which the Warriors went 18-2 last season — to the bench after Klay Thompson’s return from his Achilles injury in mid-2022 and largely struggled with the second-unit point guard job. Last season, it became clear Poole didn’t fit the role of a second-unit decision-maker and felt more comfortable as a microwave scorer. He often turned the ball over and the second unit made plenty of mistakes throughout the season that would bury them.
Paul made his future Hall of Fame career by being a floor general and mistake-free decision-maker at the point guard position. Paul had a league-best 7.43 assist-to-turnover ratio last season with the Phoenix Suns, uncanny for a true point guard responsible for feeding the scorers around him. He’s led the league in assists five times in his career, including two years ago with 10.8 assists per game.
Adding Paul to the second unit can help the Warriors turn the non-Steph Curry minutes into something productive next season. Last year, the second unit had a 113 offensive rating that ranked in the league’s 35th percentile and turned the ball over in a dismal 16.4% of possessions with Curry off the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass.
Draymond Green slotted into the second unit at various points as a point forward to organize the decision-making, resulting in a slightly better 114.4 offensive rating and slightly fewer turnovers.
“That unit should not play as fast as the first unit,” Green said in November about the second unit. “It should be more methodical. It should be more sets. It should be more patterned movements as opposed to random movements and random offense. For me, it’s just trying to slow that unit down
“Number two, make sure that unit is defending. As a second unit, your job isn’t to go out there and build the lead, your job is to maintain the lead.”
Paul is the standard bearer for conducting a slow and methodical offense. And while his play style runs counter to the chaotic, fast-paced offense Curry, Green, and Klay Thompson have dominated the league with, the Warriors have historically found success using the second unit to change the tempo. Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala, for example, made Golden State’s championship-era bench units a force because they could get players such as Leandro Barbosa, Marreese Speights and Ian Clark in a scoring rhythm when Curry rests.
Paul’s playmaking can get young players such as Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga into a scoring rhythm off the bench — assuming no one listed here is traded before opening day, which is still a possibility that includes Paul. Plus, Paul can certainly limit the turnovers as the primary decision-maker.
At 38 with a long injury history, Paul may be best suited to play around 20 minutes per game off the bench to keep control of any wear and tear.
People around the Warriors are not certain Paul will agree to come off the bench since he’s never done it in his career. A future Hall of Famer should have plenty of say in the way he’s being used. Is one of the decade’s best point guard’s OK with conceding to be the No. 2 to his longtime adversary in Curry?
It’s also presumed that head coach Steve Kerr would use Paul in some of the small-ball three-guard lineups he used when Poole was involved. Paul might get a few starts when Kerr and the coaching staff can opt for offense and defer the decision-making to Green.
There’s something poetic about Paul moving to the bench for a Curry-led team. Much of the Warriors dynasty has been colored by Curry’s adversarial relationship with Paul. Curry burst into the league as a disruptor who successfully challenged the way the point guard position should be played — he formed a dynasty as a freakish shooter and scorer within a hurricane offense. Paul was always on the other side, playing a traditional role with the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets, and Suns, ready to bring Curry back down to earth.
Now Paul is joining the side he could never beat. The jury is still out on whether he’ll accept a bench role behind his longtime foe. If he does, and everyone stays healthy, it could yield another championship run.
