Hollinger's PER 08-09

It is almost time to switch to basketball season from baseball season as my predominate passion. Right now I'm at about 65-35 baseball. But our favorite statistician and yours John Hollinger has come out with his individual PER rating and low and behold who is first. Actually I'll just copy and paste.

2008-09 outlook: Paul projects to lead the NBA in PER this season, a fact that surprised some folks -- like me, for instance; I'd expected LeBron James to be first. But Paul is only 23, is playing a position where development curves tend to be long, and has made substantial improvement in his first three seasons.

In fact, if you compare how he played at ages 20 through 22 you'd be hard-pressed to find a single point guard in history who was demonstrably superior, which might make it easier to digest the possibility of further ascent. It might be odd to think of a 6-0, 175-pound guy as the best player in the league, especially when iconic talents like LeBron and Kobe are in their primes. But if Paul improves much at all from last season, we're going to have to get comfortable with that idea.

I've said it once, I'll say it again Chris Paul was the best player in the NBA last season. NOT KOBE BRYANT. Lebron was (mostly) better than Kobe too, but Kobe's other stuff like playing through injury and not coasting for 20-30 games made Kobe second in my book. I don't truly expect Paul to have a better season than Lebron even though it is entirely possible and those two are probably going to battle for that honor. I'd love to see it, and the Hornets could have just as successfull season if he does live up to these lofty expectations.