NBA All-Star Game: Chris Paul edges teammate Devin Booker, continues to be among league's surest winning bets - CBS Sports

If you were one of the people who wrote off Chris Paul a few years ago, Tuesday was another reminder of just how terrible a take that was as Paul, who is threatening a 50-40-90 season, was named to second straight and 11th career All-Star team over his arguably equally deserving teammate Devin Booker. .

Unlike the Hornets and Clippers BC (Before Chris), the BC Suns were not a broken team, necessarily.

Booker is having an All-Star season, probably a better year than Paul, but the math of adding Paul to your team just continues to add up.

You look at that New Orleans Hornets team, which isn't even a franchise anymore, and it's easy to forget that Paul was drafted way back in 2005.

The one year James didn't have co-superstars, with the Lakers in 2018-19, he was doing everything he could to stay in the top four of the West, just as Paul is doing now with the Suns. .

That Hornets team that drafted Paul won 18 games the year before he arrived.

The first season the Rockets added Paul they were this close to bouncing the Kevin Durant-Stephen Curry Warriors in the conference finals before Paul ripped his hamstring and missed Games 6 and 7.

Last year's Thunder were thought to be in full rebuild mode after trading Paul George and Russell Westbrook, only for Paul to make them better than they were when they had both those guys. .

Paul has always played methodically, a measure-twice-cut-once kind of guy who prefers control over even an effective dose of chaos, precision over volume passing, and indeed the Suns have gone from ninth in pace last season (101.7 possessions per 48 minutes) to No

But they also take and make more shots than any team in the league inside the final four seconds of the shot clock. 

They already get a ton of good looks because Paul, who can still get to his midrange spots at will, demands as much, patiently manipulating an offense that generates the third most "wide-open" shots (24.3) per game, which the NBA defines as the closest defender being at least six feet away -- but then, on the rare occasions that all that work hits a wall, the Suns also have one of the best tough-shot makers in the business in Booker to bail out possessions. 

That is some kind of offensive combination, and quite a luxury for Monty Williams to always have one of Booker or Paul on the court, especially when they're playing with what is a really solid bench unit in Phoenix

Last season when Booker was off the court, the Suns operated at minus-5.8 points per 100 possessions with the offense falling 13 points per 100. 

This year they're golden either way: When Paul is on and Booker is off, the Suns are plus-14.1 per 100; when Booker is on and Paul is off, they are plus-13.6

Booker is probably the best player, but this is a Chris Paul team, which remains as good a thing as it's always been