Chris Paul isn’t the answer at point guard for the Sixers

The fastest week in sports is still a few weeks away, but the NBA’s free agent signing period may be on the verge of seeing a big domino fall.

The last few days have brought multiple reports that the Phoenix Suns and Chris Paul are headed toward a parting of ways, a move that could pave the way for the 38-year-old wizard to sign with a team of his choosing. That’s relevant news for any team that is in need of a point guard, and the 76ers may soon be the neediest of them all.

How much sense does it make?

Well, not a ton.

Is there a world in which Paul is suiting up at point guard for the Sixers in October? Sure, but it’s a world where the Sixers are the only team vying for his services. Or, it’s a world where Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse can see into the future and guarantee themselves that Paul will be healthy for the entirety of the postseason. Either way, it’s not the world the Sixers currently inhabit.

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The first part might be the only part that matters. Take money out of the equation for the time being. If cost were no issue, virtually every team in the NBA would have some degree of interest in having Paul in their rotation in some form or another. He’s one of history’s top handful of point guards, and he’s coming off a three-year stretch in which he helped quarterback the Suns to an NBA Finals and two conference semifinals.

Paul may not be the player he was even as recently as 2020-21, when Phoenix came within two games of an NBA title. He certainly isn’t the player he was during his peak, which included 12 All-Star teams, 11 All-NBA teams, and nine All-Defensive teams. When healthy, though, he is still as good as anybody at maximizing a half-court possession. In virtually every playoff game, there’s at least a handful of such possessions when any coach would love to have the option of calling on Paul’s steady hand.

In other words, it doesn’t really matter how much Paul would make for the Sixers unless the Sixers make the most sense for him. Right now, there’s nothing to suggest that’s the case, apart from the completely tangential connection to Morey, who traded for him in Houston and then a few years later traded him away.

Paul has spent the last 12 years of his career west of the Mississippi. Heck, he may have spent his whole career there, depending on which bank he lived on when he was playing in New Orleans. Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix — he hasn’t played in the Eastern time zone since his high school days in North Carolina. For guys in his situation, location tends to matter. It’s why the Sixers haven’t reaped much value from the buyout market over the last six years.

Regardless, you have to think that Paul’s prime motivation will be winning a ring. Right now, he’s set to go down as one of the best players to never have won one.

Once upon a time, you might have been able to talk yourself into believing that the Sixers were such a team. But we all watched Game 7. We’ve all read the reports of James Harden’s indecision. I don’t think there’s a single learned person in the NBA who would vault the Sixers to the top of the Eastern Conference’s contenders if they entered the season with a 38-year-old Paul as one of the two prime movers of their offense.

The conventional wisdom in NBA circles suggests that Paul won’t stray too far from Phoenix. His relationship with LeBron James is well-known. He spent the best stretch of his career playing in Los Angeles with the Clippers. He could end up re-signing with the Suns, who would be waiving him only

to avoid paying the remaining $16 million in non-guaranteed salary on his contract. Any one of those teams seems like a more ideal situation for a championship chaser at snowbird age.

» READ MORE: Murphy: If James Harden really wants ‘basketball freedom,’ the Sixers should let him find it elsewhere

In other words, the Sixers’ pitch to Paul would probably need to have a certain amount of backing from the Federal Reserve. It’s hard to see anything above the NBA minimum as money well spent.

If Harden leaves, the Sixers are going to have to thread an awful lot of needles to stitch together a team that is as talented as last season’s version. Every dollar they spend is going to need to have maximum impact, whether they spend it via the mid-level exception or a sign-and-trade or a cap room shell game.

At Paul’s age, with his injury history, every dollar the Sixers pay him would come with the risk that he isn’t even there when they need him. He finished this year’s postseason in street clothes with a groin injury. Over the last 12 years, the only players to start four or more playoff games in a season at 38 years old or more are James, Tim Duncan, Vince Carter, and Jason Kidd. The body gets old fast in your 30s. The deterioration rarely slows down.

For sure, Paul is an intriguing thought. But it really isn’t anything more than that.