Chris Paul’s RETIREMENT & Suns DECLINE Trade For Cam Whitmore!?

Chris Paul’s RETIREMENT & Suns DECLINE Trade For Cam Whitmore!?

In this video on the Basketball Bulletin, we’re going to cover Chris Paul announcing that this is going to be his final season in the NBA. Also, this fun report that came out that the Phoenix Suns were offered Cam Whitmore and said, “Nah, we’re not going to take that trade.” Hopefully you guys enjoy this video. Make sure you hit that thumbs up and you subscribe here to the Basketball Bulletin where 90% of the viewers aren’t subscribed and you guys are missing out on Trevor Lane and I covering the entire NBA and keeping you guys informed with all the news as it comes out. So I want to start with the Cam Whitmore piece. We’re going to start here and then pivot to Chris after that. So firstly, Cam Whitmore was offered to the Suns in the KD trade, but Phoenix opted for second round picks instead. So I have multiple thoughts on this. There was another report that said they wanted to send Cam somewhere where he would have the opportunity to thrive and ultimately they dealt him to Washington for a couple second round picks. So in Washington, one would surmise that he would have ample opportunity. He’s going to have the ball in his hands. he’s going to have all the opportunities he needs to look like a good player over there and get all the shots, learn from his mistakes, all that stuff, and just develop and grow as a basketball player. And I think that’s a ideal situation for Cam. Uh I think he’s going to be somebody that’s going to be able to put up points in bunches for them. That’s the type of player he is. And it’s unfortunate because I was looking at him as more as a depth piece or more of a depth piece for the Rockets on nights where like KD maybe isn’t there. Maybe you’re load managing KD, you’re going to need the scoring. You could plug in a guy like Cam and he can give that to you. But I think that their their front court is so crowded and they skew heavier or excuse me bigger anyway where they’re going to play heavier and bigger. They’re going to play like Shangon at the four. They’re going to slide the other guys down. Where where does that leave DFS KD these guys are going to be playing a lot of the three and four. Um unless Cam’s going to be playing a lot of two three which I’m sure he can do. kind of hard to find minutes for him and the other guys on the roster. Like they don’t I think really adding DFS just solidified that they just weren’t going to be able to play him and they were struggling to even get minutes for like a guy like Reed Shepard last year. They’re just was not going to be opportunity for the foreseeable future for him to have a sizable role in this team and really break out. And ultimately though, I I think that’s a good trade. Now, if you’re a team that wanted Cam, again, the cost was 2 seconds. Now, maybe it was higher for some other teams. I don’t know. But, for example, I saw a lot of Laker fans like, “Why didn’t we do that?” Teams really value these second round picks, right? These second round picks are really interesting because of the way that like these high second round picks get valued. And also, another thing that happens is you can put two, three, sometimes four or five second round picks together to get a quality piece back. And that’s kind of what happened here in my opinion. And it it’s what happened last year where the Lakers gave up their tradable seconds. So to answer that, they don’t have the two seconds to trade. Ironically, um they gave him up for DFS, right? And that’s a quality depth piece. You get him, you add him to your team, uh he helps transform the culture there, all that stuff last season, but you let him go. So there’s that. Could argue not the best asset management. They do turn that into Lavia. Aton couldn’t you couldn’t have predicted Aton, but also Aton eats up that cap space, too. Um, but if you’re if you’re a team that was interested in him, I think two seconds, regardless of how valuable seconds are in today’s NBA, I think people have this bad perception of them, like they’re just something you can go get on a whim. You can’t go get seconds on a whim. Not typically anyway, in today’s NBA, but you know, even when you’re buying them, you’re giving up yours. It’s a trade where you’re adding cash to it to move up. Like, it’s not like you’re just buying it and getting both, right? Um, so if that was a cost, I would have taken it, though. And if you’re Phoenix, Phoenix might have been the worst place he could go because everybody on that roster is a two- three basically. And he’s not gonna get opportunity there. Like there’s just no spot for him to develop as a meaningful rotation piece on Phoenix. That might have been the worst possible place for him to go, quite literally. So I can understand it from that perspective. Uh, but it’s kind of counter I don’t know intuitive here if they wanted to send him somewhere where he would get the opportunity but then also offered him as part of the KD trade. I don’t know if that would have made the trade look a little different initially all that stuff but who knows. So moving on from the cam piece I wanted to talk about Chris Paul. So firstly Chris Paul actually was really good last season. I wanted to detail this first and then we’re going to get into the video where he talks about this being his last season. that’s not very long. But for Chris Paul last season relative to other point guards, his usage was in the 29th percentile. So he is somebody that went from being a on the ball a lot of the time guy, even as recently as just the last couple of years to this year being mostly an offthe-ball point guard. And a lot of his value comes in just those quick hitter passes. Uh sometimes in transition also um running of some some pick and rolls every now and again, but a lot of it is also just spotting up in the corner nowadays. But 29th percentile, low usage there, but assist to to usage ratio is in the 96th percentile. So that tells you that when he gets an opportunity, he is landing those assists. And the assist percentage is in the 81st percentile. Now, this stat assist percentage is completely dependent on your opponent or your excuse me, your teammate actually making those shots, right? So, there’s that. But points per shot attempt is extremely high as well because he doesn’t take a ton of shots, but he has been efficient with those. It’s very in line with his career in the 75th percentile. And then turnovers aren’t as great as they have been in the past, but still 54th percentile. That’s not all too bad. It was like 20 something in the NBA. Yeah. 25th in the NBA. Couple slots behind a guy like Luca in terms of the uh amount of turnovers that he’s giving up. Now, looking at the lineup data for him on the most recent team he was on, which was just San Antonio, which wasn’t a great team. You know, they dealt with some injuries and stuff also towards the end of the season. Uh, but they were basically neutral with Chris Paul out there. Just a slight minus 0.3. So basically neutral uh with Chris Paul out there. But when they were playing their main guys like namely Wemby, they were extremely good. And some of that’s just Webby being a huge swing anyway. A lot of it is just that. But Chris Paul was able to slot in as a fifth starter in some of these lineups and really provide value as a low usage guy and setting up WBY in opportunities to score. But they were plus 12, plus 11, plus 15. They have some really, really good uh lineup data with Chris Paul out there. But again, mostly with WBY when you plugged him in with guys like Bambo in that spot instead or small ball Harrison Barnes at the center with Jeremy Shan, it just didn’t look as great. Um, so that was mostly what was happening out there was Chris, he blended very well with WBY. ultimately though had a really good season for the team and they were uh pretty good with him on both sides of the court overall. Now I wanted to pivot over to that video that we were talking about
at a high level that you’re in the twilight of your NBA career.
Yeah.
So how much longer do you intend to play? Uh at the most a year
you know I just finished my 20th season which is a blessing in itself. Yeah. I
So, that one is interesting because he said he wants to play at most a year. So, that means this is most likely his last season in the NBA unless something changes. At 40 years old, I’d imagine something probably doesn’t change. But he also wants to be a starter somewhere because to me, I think he’d be great on a number of teams, but the tippy top of the list, and they have been reported to have interests, but to me at the tippy top of the list, and it’s a match made in heaven in my opinion, is Milwaukee. I think it’s such a no-brainer to go there, but he wants to stay close to or play in LA to stay close to his family. And I, as a father, I wouldn’t be able to imagine being away from my kids all year basically like that. And and while I’m in Milwaukee and they’re living in LA, and it’s not, it’s not like he can’t ever see them. It’s not like he can’t hop on a plane and fly over there. Not like he won’t be in LA playing uh a couple of times or I guess a handful of times a year between the two teams. Actually, no, just a couple times, right? um or he would be close in like Phoenix. Like there’s opportunities, right? But it’s different if he were to just be able to be there more often than not if he played in the city, right? And some of that’s also why this is again presumably his last year in the NBA is these guys start getting this age and they’re like, I just want to be home with my family, right? Uh my wife wants me home, all that stuff. So, you know, at 40, he was still very productive. nine points, four rebounds, seven and a half assists in 28 minutes per game. Right? That’s another big thing is he doesn’t play a ton of minutes. 28 minutes per game, all 82 games still gave you those averages. 92% from the free throw line on one attempt per game because, you know, he ain’t getting to the line very much. He mostly is a spot-up guy like I was saying, shooting four and a half threes per game at a 38% clip. I’ll take that from my lead point guard on the team. Not bad at all. But this team finished far below, right? you know, 500. They finished 34 and 48. So, they had a very tough season overall. So, really with that many losses and him playing in every game, him being a neutral is actually really good. Him being him being at neutral overall was actually really good. That tells you that he was doing his part, right? So, yeah. To me though, I just think it’s weird because like I said, I think Milwaukee is a great place for him. Does he start in Phoenix? Possibly. I could I could see it. I could see it in Phoenix. They need a point guard, too. Um, I could see it for sure and that would be a nice place for him to go, right? But in LAC, can he start there? Maybe, maybe. Like I don’t I don’t know if he’s does is he interested in being a full-time 30 minute per night decent usage starter or is he interested in being a starter by name and then just being pulled early, playing with the second rotation, things like that. Because I think on a quality team, Chris Paul’s more of a 20 minute per night guy because I think he can still be a very good piece to a rotation that even has championship aspirations at about 20 minutes per night off your bench especially. I think he could I think in that role he could go to a number of teams and it would be a nice addition to have on your team. So that’s mostly how I feel about him. But if he wants to be a 30 plus minute per night guy, like which hasn’t been the trend for him over the last couple years of his career, uh a high usage ball guy, things like that, I don’t know if that’s the best fit, but I guess it remains to be seen. But let me know in the comments down below what you guys think about Cam Whitmore and Chris Paul. Where’s Chris Paul going? What do you think?

In this video we discuss Chris Paul announcing his retirement from the NBA and the news that Phoenix was offered Cam Whitmore in a trade which they declined

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