"losing one of the greatest point guards not just now, but maybe ever."

Not close to being the best ever. Not even the best in the current league.

Jackson was definitely a lot worse than Doc! But the moment Doc got President of Basketball Ops as well as the coaching gig, I thought "here's trouble"! Never a good idea IMO.

The coach needs to be able to stay at arms length from all the wheeling and dealing of players. If he doesn't, he can end up being blamed by his team for personnel decisions (accurately or otherwise). That is exactly what happened with Austin Rivers.

I think the Clippers are making a mistake signing Blake to such a huge contract. He can't stay healthy and the Clips are just making up the numbers with him even if they somehow find another top notch PG. First round exits and no hope for the next few years methinks!

Brunson, which PG's do you think are better currently? I don't particularly like Paul, but he's a damn good PG. For pure PG's who actually setup their team-mates, I think he and Wall are right at the top right now. But Paul has been at the top longer than Wall.

If you want to throw in Curry, Harden, Westbrook and Thomas, they are all great, but they are more scorers than creators.

Getting back to debacles, I think the Nets trade with the Celtics to get Pierce and KG blows anything Phil or Doc did out of the water! I still thank Billy King every day for those three unprotected draft picks!

For an extended body of work, its hard to go past the Knicks, who have been awful ever since they signed Houston to that 6 year $100mill contract back in 2001! It has been disaster after disaster since then.

This is a fun read unless you're a Knicks fan...

http://au.complex.com/sports/2013/02/the-25-worst-nba-contracts-of-all-time/allan-houston

The Knicks have 3 of the top 5 in the list - Houston, Marbury and Eddy Curry. They also have Jerome James and Amare Stoudemire!

I think the common commentary regarding Chris Paul is that everyone in the league respects him immensely but no one fears him. Has never reached a Western Conference final so he'll need to do that in Houston, at the least, to raise his standing among the games great PGs.

I think plenty of teams fear his ability to win playoff games. I've watched him step up time and again to close out big games for his team. But one player can only do so much. He just hasn't had good enough teams around him. It's extremely tough to even make the conference finals. Even Lebron needed the likes of Wade and Bosh to finally start challenging for a title.

I agree though that he needs to at least take Houston to the finals if he wants to become an all time great. Will be interesting to see what kind of a boost he can give Houston. I think he'll improve them, but without some more frontcourt help, I don't see how they get past the Warriors. Capela and Anderson is not going to get it done!

If you were starting a new team and your first pick was a guard and you could pick anyone in the league, who would you pick first?

I would pick Westbrook, Harden, Wall, Thomas, Irving before I would pick Paul.

The argument that some of them aren't natural point guards is a trivial matter IMO. People are still picking majority of those players over Paul.

Beantown how can you say he hasn't been in very good teams when he has basically had two all-stars in his team and/or quality role players? I would say injuries has been the main issue.

Well the OP originally said POINT guard and you said Paul is not even the best in the current league. So I was specifically asking about pure point guards, rather than MVP level scorers, which is what Westbrook, Curry and Harden are.

I think as a point guard, Wall is pretty close to Paul at this stage, but he hasn't been at Paul's level for very long. He might catch Paul in a few years, but for now I still rate Paul as the best current point guard.

If you take a look at all time assists, Paul is also on track to easily finish 3rd behind Stockton and Kidd. He would only need to average 8 assists per game over the next 3 regular seasons to achieve that. He's also a much better shooter than Kidd and has a better assist to TO ratio.

So I actually think Chris Paul is on track to be an all time great point guard. All he really needs is to at least make a couple of conference finals to really put it beyond doubt.

As far as the Clippers go, I don't rate them at all. The writing was on the wall 3 years ago once Kerr took over and it was clear the Warriors were going to be a force. The Clippers simply can't guard small ball teams. They can't get away with Blake at centre because he can't defend the rim and they can't play him at the 4 against the likes of Durant, Lebron, or even Iguodala or Barnes, because he can't make them pay enough defensively. Compounding that was DeAndre being unable to shoot free throws, Blake getting injured all the time and Doc being unable to find a good enough three and D small forward.

I think one problem Paul faces, is that even with Houston its going to be tough for him to get past the Warriors. The Rockets don't have the big men to guard Durant either! I'm a bit surprised he went there really. I think the guys you need to beat the Warriors are Davis, Embiid, Towns or maybe Cousins. The Wolves might have been a sneaky scary move now that they have Butler along with Wiggins and Towns! New Orleans probably too dysfunctional and Philly just too young.

The apparent refusal of a trade for Carmelo that included Austin Rivers led to further locker room division and let Paul leave to Houston. First of all Phil's trading and alienating of Carmelo was bad, if he kept it under wraps, probably could have got a lot more for him, maybe picks from Boston, some players from Miami, even Russel or others from Lakers.

I think as a point guard, Wall is pretty close to Paul at this stage, but he hasn't been at Paul's level for very long. He might catch Paul in a few years, but for now I still rate Paul as the best current point guard...I actually think Chris Paul is on track to be an all time great point guard.

Doesn't Anthony have a no-trade clause?

Melo joining Paul in Houston would be interesting, but I still don't think its enough to get them past GSW. The other problem here is what can Houston afford to send to the Knicks that they'd want in trade? Paul may have got himself a bigger payday by going the trade option instead of free agency, but it has probably cost Houston too many assets.

Koberulz, I was just focussing on Brunson's comments that he didn't even think Paul was the best current PG, let alone best ever. So we'd moved on from the initial post.

As far as the Clippers go, of course it hurts them a lot. Paul didn't show any signs of dropping off much this season, so I think that he is set for at least two more top years. I think the only (small) chance the Clippers had to get back into contention would have been to sign and trade Blake instead. Get some athletic wings who can spread the floor and defend and hope they have enough money left to sign a good free agent scorer to take some pressure off Paul. It'd be a longshot, but better than sticking with Griffin I believe.