Transformers: Off Guards in Disguise

Chris Paul and Darren Collison come in at about 12'0 combined. When the Hornets drafted Collison, the assumption was that Collison would be Paul's backup, and until Paul's knee failed him, so it went, and it was pretty alright.

Let's focus on Collison for a minute. Off the bench, he averages about 15 mpg, with 6 ppg and 2.4 apg. Good numbers for a substitute who's going to receive fairly limited minutes. Chris Paul carries the team on his handsome shoulders, and even if they're splitting the minutes between Paul and Collison almost exactly, with only one in the game at a time, and always having one at the point, CP3 is getting 33 minutes of burn every game. Enough to make a difference, not so much that CP3 is falling apart at the seams by the playoffs. (Don Nelson could learn something from this approach.)

Of course, Collison took over the starting position when Paul went out, and as a starter, he averaged 40 mpg with 18.2 ppg and 9.0 apg. Also worth noting that his 3P% jumped from a feeble 29% to a scorching 41%. The increased shooting from long range, I would assume, would be from more minutes allowing him to get into a shooting groove and from better decision making that comes from getting burn.

This was all well and good, and everyone was pretty impressed with Collison for stepping into CP3's shoes and everything not immediately collapsing. The revelation that is Marcus Thornton probably did not hurt, either. The two have powerful chemistry on the court, and I've already discussed on this blog how devastating Thornton is.

And then, Chris Paul came back. I thought it was a bad idea, as the last time he was injured, he came back too early to push his team to the playoffs and reinjured himself. With no hope of the playoffs, it seemed like CP3 was just going to hurt himself again. Of course, what I didn't realize was that the Hornets coaching staff could possibly be using this time to see how Collison and Paul would interact directly.

[Now, here's my little disclaimer: I've argued that Marcus Thornton should be a sixth man in the recent past, and I've realized that this is, well, dumb. The Hornets need to build their secondary from the ground up. Their foundation should probably be Collison, because he's an excellent point guard.]

I'm not a real Hornets fan, so I haven't taken the time to watch Chris Paul since his first night back, which was a pretty dull affair. It's to be expected of a guy shaking off injury rust. I blearily saw the last few minutes of the Lakers-Hornets game last night because I received a phone call telling me that Kobe was about to foul out, and my being is fueled by schadenfreude.

However, through my sleep encrusted eyes, I noticed that Collison and Paul were playing together, which I thought was strange. Small ball is a valid-ish strategy, but Collison and Paul are already considered undersized as point guards. They played very well together, though. As my twitter associate Clintonite33 (who actually inspired this post, and whom you should follow... http://twitter.com/Clintonite33) pointed out, Paul and Collison each had a game high adjusted +/- of +14, combined for a +23 when they were on the court together, and (here's the wild part) they outscored LA 49-16 while together on the court.

I've always liked Chris Paul's game. He's a pure point guard who can take over games from a scoring perspective if he needs to. I've also liked Collison's game. He's also a pure point guard who can take over games from a scoring perspective. I also thought that if they played together, they'd end up cancelling each other out, as conventional wisdom would state that given that both are point guards, they need the ball in their hands most of the time to be effective.

I, of course, had not taken into account that they can (and will) light up the scoreboard if opposing teams play off them. Doubling up on the point guards created matchup problems for LA, because Paul and Collison are lightning quick. Artest can defend down to the shooting guard position, but Collison is too fast for him to handle. Kobe is the only feasible defender for opposing point guards, as Farmar and Fisher can't defend shit. Odom might have been fast enough back in his Miami days, but his defense has fallen by the wayside. They worked the Lakers last night, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Also worth noting is that in the last 5 games, Collison's assists have dipped a bit (5.8 vs. 9.0), but his scoring has remained consistent with when he was a starter (18.2), and his FG% and 3P% have gone up (47% and 41% to 58% and 63%, respectively) , and this is all despite the fact he's playing 10 less minutes per game. He seems to have shifted into his new position off of the bench nicely. Part of this is that he's still been playing at the point, but he's also been playing with Chris Paul and meshing nicely. The three guard rotation of the Hornets is scarily potent. I would not expect Marcus Thornton to relinquish his position as starter, especially given how well he's performed there (19.2 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.3 apg), but he doesn't really need to. Any combination of the three (Paul/Thornton, Paul/Collison, Collison/Thornton) has proven to be effective, and it makes an interesting case for having multiple young PGs on any given team.

It's a radical idea, not unlike the Wildcat offense or even the spread offense once were in football. The desire to innovate is a natural one, as it leads to an effective offense, simply because no one else has devised a counter for it. The end result of a dual PG offense would be the ability to either constantly push the tempo or reign it back in control at the expense of size. It's an odd combination of small ball and having a point forward. If you have two players who can handle the ball, then that's two players who can run the offense. It's impractical for an entire game, but it's good as a change of pace strategy. It may never catch on, or it might set the league ablaze. For now, it's too new to tell, and even though it beat the Lakers last night, it could just be a fluke. It's won a single game, but nobody knows if it can be sustained for an entire season. The idea seems new even to the Hornets. It may not have even been their intent to do things this way.

That said, in the petri dish of the NBA...