Chris Paul career.
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2026 5:00 pm
When Chris Paul had played a few NBA games, he was compared to Oscar Robertson. The statistical similarity was first noted in this forum.
In 20 seasons, he outlasted Oscar by several years. And according to b-r.com, these 2 are still the most similar to one another in NBA history, based on their annual Win Shares.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... l#all_sims
Of these 11, only Oscar had a best (#1) season that was better than any by Paul.
These are all guards; not all are point guards. Ranked by their best season; their 2nd best; 3rd, etc.
The top spots are Oscar-Stock-Paul exclusively.
Topping out at #2 are Magic in his 4th best WS year and Reggie Miller in his 12th best.
Curry, West, Harden, and Kobe hit the #3 spot at various times.
Drexler and Payton get to #6 and 8 respectively.
A couple of notable omissions: M Jordan's most-similars are the same except without Drexler. And he leads at every point thru 12 seasons.
Westbrook took the triple-double distinction from Oscar but faded quickly thereafter -- Only 6 other seasons half as good as his best. None of his WS similars match these.
(Kobe) had a couple of negative-WS seasons.
Here's a similar exercise with VORP.
No Oscar, no West -- no BPM or VORP back then.Isiah just misses the top 10 all along.
In 20 seasons, he outlasted Oscar by several years. And according to b-r.com, these 2 are still the most similar to one another in NBA history, based on their annual Win Shares.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... l#all_sims
Of these 11, only Oscar had a best (#1) season that was better than any by Paul.
These are all guards; not all are point guards. Ranked by their best season; their 2nd best; 3rd, etc.
Code: Select all
#1 2 3 4 5
Oscar CP3 Oscar Oscar Oscar
CP3 Oscar CP3 Magic Stockton
Curry West Magic Harden CP3
West Magic West West Harden
Magic Curry Harden Stockton West
Harden Harden Stockton CP3 Magic
Stockton Kobe Kobe Kobe Kobe
Kobe Stockton Curry Curry Payton
Payton Payton Payton Payton Drexler
Drexler Drexler Drexler Drexler Reggie
Reggie Reggie Reggie Reggie Curry
#6 7 8 9 10
Oscar Stockton Stockton Stockton Oscar
Stockton Oscar Oscar Oscar Stockton
Harden Harden Harden Magic West
West West CP3 West Kobe
CP3 CP3 Magic Kobe Magic
Magic Magic West CP3 CP3
Kobe Kobe Reggie Reggie Reggie
Drexler Reggie Kobe Harden Harden
Payton Payton Payton Payton Payton
Reggie Drexler Curry Curry Curry
Curry Curry Drexler Drexler Drexler
11 12 13 14 15
Oscar Stockton Stockton Stockton CP3
Stockton Reggie CP3 CP3 Stockton
Kobe Kobe Reggie Reggie Harden
Magic CP3 Oscar Harden Reggie
CP3 Oscar Kobe Kobe Kobe
Reggie Harden Harden Drexler Payton
West West Drexler Oscar Drexler
Harden Payton West Curry Curry
Payton Curry Curry Payton
Curry Drexler Payton West
Drexler Magic Magic
16 17 18 19 20
CP3 CP3 CP3 CP3 CP3
Stockton Stockton Stockton Stockton (Kobe)
Reggie Reggie Reggie (Kobe)
Kobe Kobe Kobe
Harden Payton
Payton
Curry
Topping out at #2 are Magic in his 4th best WS year and Reggie Miller in his 12th best.
Curry, West, Harden, and Kobe hit the #3 spot at various times.
Drexler and Payton get to #6 and 8 respectively.
A couple of notable omissions: M Jordan's most-similars are the same except without Drexler. And he leads at every point thru 12 seasons.
Westbrook took the triple-double distinction from Oscar but faded quickly thereafter -- Only 6 other seasons half as good as his best. None of his WS similars match these.
(Kobe) had a couple of negative-WS seasons.
Here's a similar exercise with VORP.
No Oscar, no West -- no BPM or VORP back then.
Code: Select all
PG/G rank 1 aka 2 aka 3 aka 4 aka
CP3 9.9 CP3 9.3 CP3 8.1 JS 8.0 JS
Curry 9.5 SC 8.3 MJ 8.1 MJ 8.0 MJ
Westbrook 9.3 RW 8.1 JS 8.0 JH 7.7 JH
Harden 9.3 JH 8.1 JH 7.2 CP3 6.7 CP3
Magic 8.9 MJ 7.9 SC 6.7 SC 5.9 SC
Shai 8.9 SG 7.1 SG 6.1 RW 5.8 RW
Stockton 8.3 JS 6.8 RW 5.9 GP 5.7 GP
Luka 8.0 LD 6.6 LD 5.9 DL 5.4 LD
Payton 7.3 GP 6.1 GP 5.9 LD 5.0 DL
Kidd 6.5 JK 6.1 CB 5.6 SG 4.9 JK
Isiah 6.5 IT 6.0 DL 5.0 JK 4.8 AI
Lillard 6.3 DL 5.5 JK 5.0 AI 4.6 SG
Porter 6.2 TP 5.4 TP 4.9 IT 4.4 SN
Billups 6.2 CB 5.3 AI 4.5 SN 4.3 CB
Iverson 6.1 AI 5.1 IT 4.5 CB 4.0 TP
Nash 5.3 SN 4.9 SN 4.0 TP 4.0 IT
5 aka 6 aka 7 aka 8 aka 9 aka
7.9 JS 7.6 JS 7.5 JS 6.4 JS 6.3 JS
7.3 JH 6.8 MJ 6.1 MJ 5.8 CP3 5.6 MJ
7.0 MJ 6.8 JH 6.0 CP3 5.7 MJ 5.2 CP3
6.4 CP3 6.1 CP3 5.8 JH 5.3 JH 4.7 SC
5.8 SC 5.6 SC 5.1 SC 4.8 SC 4.4 JH
5.2 GP 5.2 GP 4.9 GP 4.3 DL 4.1 JK
5.1 LD 4.9 DL 4.8 DL 4.2 JK 3.9 DL
4.9 DL 4.6 RW 4.4 RW 4.1 GP 3.8 AI
4.8 JK 4.5 JK 4.2 JK 3.9 AI 3.7 GP
4.7 RW 4.5 AI 4.0 AI 3.6 CB 3.0 RW
10 aka 11 aka 12 aka 13 aka 14 aka
6.2 JS 5.3 JS 5.3 JS 4.8 JS 4.0 JS
5.3 MJ 4.8 MJ 4.2 CP3 4.0 CP3 3.6 CP3
5.1 CP3 4.4 SC 4.0 SC 3.7 JH 3.3 JK
4.4 SC 4.2 CP3 3.9 JK 3.6 JK 3.1 JH
4.0 JK 4.0 JK 3.8 MJ 2.7 SC 2.0 SC
4.0 JH 3.8 JH 3.7 JH 1.8 MJ 1.5 GP
3.6 GP 3.1 GP 2.9 GP 1.6 GP 1.2 TP
3.2 DL 2.8 SN 2.7 SN 1.4 SN 1.0 RW
2.9 SN 2.7 DL 2.1 AI 1.2 RW 1.0 SN
2.7 RW 2.3 RW 1.8 RW 1.2 TP 0.4 CB
15 aka 16 aka 17 aka 18 aka 19 aka
3.6 JS 3.5 CP3 2.8 JS 2.5 CP3 1.6 CP3
3.5 CP3 3.4 JS 2.8 CP3 2.1 JS 1.2 JK
3.0 JK 2.7 JK 2.1 JK 1.9 JK 0.7 JS
2.2 JH 2.0 JH 1.1 JH 0.2
2.0 SC 1.2 SC 0.5 RW -0.2
1.5 GP 0.7 TP 0.5
0.7 RW 0.6 GP 0.2
0.7 TP 0.6 RW -0.1
0.4 SN 0.0 CB -0.3
0.3 CB -0.1 SN -0.5