Here’s how Chris Paul can still be a top-50 player in 2021

We’re spending this week at SB Nation trying to imagine the world in 2021. Specifically, after you ride your hoverboard to the parking garage, hop into your flying car, and glide to your nearest NBA arena while listening to hologram Tupac, what will you see? Which players will still be the stars of the league?

Will Chris Paul be one of them?

In four years, Paul will still be an annoying S.O.B., that’s for certain. Paul turned 32 in May, meaning he’ll play the entire 2020-21 season as a 36-year-old. We know the parts of his game that involve mental gifts rather than physical ones won’t leave him. He’ll still boast brilliant court vision, and everyone knows that his tenacity won’t depart him.

But time’s cruel to us all, and Paul’s aging will eventually catch up to him. In our top-100 of 2021 ranking, I selected Paul with the No. 77 pick. In Tom Ziller’s actual top 100 of 2017 ranking, he lists Zach LaVine in that same spot. Two spots above him belong to Jabari Parker and Steven Adams, while the two players ranked No. 78 and No. 79 are Aaron Gordon and Cody Zeller.

If you’re picked in the second half of the 70s, you’re an above-average starter. Parker and LaVine complicate this slightly, since both are coming off significant injuries that factor into Ziller’s rankings. However, Adams, Zeller, and Gordon are all best as the fourth-best player on a championship team, and a perfectly capable third-best player on most others. (That’s what Adams is for the Thunder, and it has worked well for them.)

Currently, Ziller has Paul as the 13th-best player in the league. In four years, will he worsen from an All-NBA caliber player to one that would need four players better than him to win a ring?

Look, nobody knows for sure, but let’s lay out the case for both.

NBA history shows us that you can’t trust the longevity of small point guards. Paul is 6’0 exactly at best, and maybe a little bit shorter than that. He has suffered injuries throughout his career — not enormous ones that cost him dozens of games, but nagging ones that have bothered him for long stretches of time. Twice in the last four seasons, Paul played under 70 games. He’ll eclipse 30,000 career minutes this coming season, and he’ll likely be nearing 35,000 in 2021.

All that makes health a concern for Paul, especially since he isn’t a built, 6’8 wing. With small guards especially, we see injuries wear slowly and then strike suddenly. It can turn a career in a moment.

Paul isn’t reliant solely on his athleticism, of course, but you can imagine how his effectiveness will suffer once his first step declines. And what about his lateral movement, which is crucial both defensively and for Paul to navigate to open spaces for his pull-up, mid-range jumper?

By 2021, if Paul is the 77th-best player in the league, he’ll still be a valuable starter. But he’ll be averaging 14 and 7, not 18 and 9.

The counter argument is simple, actually. Paul might be the smartest player in the league right now, and he’ll still be his precognitive self in 2021. His passing and ball handling skills won’t degrade along with his athleticism, even if he can’t blow by defenders as often.

Paul is also a lethal shooter, another skill that won’t go away with age. Last season, he attempted five threes per game while hitting 41 percent, eighth-best in the league for players attempting at least that many shots.

He might be even better than you think. Most of Paul’s looks are pull-up jumpers, and he’s great at them, hitting 39.1 percent, per NBA.com’s tracking data. Paul only took 1.1 spot-up attempts per game, though, because he had the ball in his hands so often.

You can expect those to increase in Houston as he coexists with James Harden. That’s great news, because Paul hit 49.3 percent on all catch-and-shoot three-point attempts last year.

I looked at old point guards in recent years, and that reassured me that 36-year-old Paul should still be fine. Steve Nash dropped off suddenly, but he was 38. Andre Miller’s 36-year-old season was his last one playing starter’s minutes, and he was fine. At 36, Jason Kidd actually had his best season in Dallas before his stats fell off the following season. Chauncey Billups was bad at 36 years old, and Tony Parker — though much more reliant on his athleticism — has been declining for a while.

But Paul is currently better at 32 than either of those players.

That’s my official prediction. Paul will still be a top-50 player in 2021.

He’ll be worse, of course, and his defense might fall off a cliff. Injuries could catch up to him, because they’re often prone to do that.

But this is Chris Paul, damnit. Why wouldn’t he still be great?

Let’s be fair: I picked him, so of course I’m higher on him than others. As voters, we’re also inclined to think about the best-case scenario for everyone. We want all these players to age gracefully, or develop into the peak of their potential. We can’t forecast every drastic decline.

Paul’s going to tumble in four years. It’s just a question of how far. No. 77 is certainly possible, but I’d like to think that’s the worst-case scenario, not the most likely one.