Los Angeles Clippers: 4 Ways Chris Paul Has Impacted the Team

When they Los Angeles Clippers added Chris Paul to their team, they added more than just the best point guard in basketball. They added someone with the chops to lead the team to glory.

What that glory ends up being remains to be seen; but Paul has the Clippers off to a good start, as they have won three of their first five games en route to a perch atop the Pacific Division standings. Paul's fingerprints are all over this team, as he has molded them into shape for their first serious playoff run in more than half a decade.

The Chris Paul Effect is on full display in Lob City. Let's take a look at four ways the squad's new superstar has impacted the Clippers so far this season.

1. Execution

With the league's best floor general on their side, the Clippers have refined their execution this year.

Last season, there was no one anywhere near Paul's level at running the Clippers' offense. Baron Davis had the ability but not the desire. Mo Williams was a late addition, and he is more comfortable in a scoring role. Eric Bledsoe was an overmatched rookie. Those three got the bulk of the minutes at point guard for L.A., and it led to their Achilles' heel—the NBA's worst turnover rate.

Paul's arrival has changed that. He has cleaned up their play on offense and helped the team cut down on their miscues. Through five games this season, the Clippers have actually turned the ball over at the lowest rate in the entire league. Compared to 2011, it's been a five percent drop in turnover rate. That has led to more possessions and more points for the Clippers.

Through the team's first four games, when Paul had been on the floor the Clips turned the ball over just once every 14 minutes. When Paul had been off the floor, they turned it over once every two minutes. That's a difference of more than 20 turnovers over a 48-minute span.

It seems like Paul's prolific passing ability has also become contagious. The Clippers currently boast the NBA's second-highest assist rate, after finishing 18th in that metric a season ago. The Clips record assists on 64 percent of their field goals with Paul in the game; as opposed to 56 percent when he's on the sideline.

With Paul at the helm, the Clippers are playing smarter basketball and forcing opponents to beat them, rather than them beating themselves.

2. Shooting

Paul has boosted the Clippers' shooting numbers this season as well. It's not just the fact that he's shooting better than 52 percent from the field at the moment. It's also his innate ability to get the ball to other players just where they want it and where they can do the most damage with it.

Whether it's hitting Chauncey Billups off of a screen for a spot-up jumper, feeding Blake Griffin in the post or throwing inch-perfect lobs to DeAndre Jordan, Paul puts his teammates in the best position to succeed. 

Through five games, the Clippers as a team are shooting 48.5 percent from the field, good for second in the league. Last season, they were just 20th in the league with a 45.7 percent field goal percentage.

Paul has also gotten the Clippers to rise from 16th to second and from 17th to fourth in effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, respectively.

After the team's first four games, the Clips had a 6.4 percent better effective field goal percentage when Paul was on the floor compared to when he was off it.

3. Offensive Efficiency

This is an area where Paul has always excelled. Even when he worked with subpar talent in New Orleans, Paul managed to keep the Hornets at least in the middle of the pack in offensive efficiency.

In 2011, the Clippers ranked 23rd in the NBA in efficiency, scoring 101.8 points per 100 possessions.

With the addition of Paul, so far this season the team is up to 107.9 points per 100 possessions, the best mark in the league thus far.

Further analyzing Paul's impact on the offense, the Clippers scored a whopping 21.8 more points per 48 minutes when Paul was on the court as opposed to when Paul was sitting in their first four contests.

No player in the NBA runs an offense as smoothly as Paul does, and the team is clearly benefiting from his skills as a premier floor general in the early going of 2012.

4. Leadership

Everyone in the Clippers locker room respects and defers to Paul. He is the straw that stirs the drink in L.A.

In Paul, The Clippers finally have a proven closer to turn to down the stretch of tight games. A great example of this came on New Year's Day when the Clippers took on the Portland Trail Blazers, the team with the best record in the Western Conference.

The Clips watched a 17-point fourth-quarter lead evaporate in minutes as Portland closed the gap to four. With the team reeling and badly in need of a bucket, Paul connected on a 28-foot double-pump three-pointer as the shot clock buzzer went off to give the team some much needed breathing room. 

Then, after the Blazers made one last run and cut the lead to just two with under 30 seconds left in the game, Paul took matters into his own hands, expertly avoiding LaMarcus Aldridge's length to convert a driving layup to put the Clippers up four with just nine seconds remaining.

Immediately following that, Paul saved the game on the defensive end, forcing a jump ball and then winning the tip away from Jamal Crawford, to seal the victory for the Clips and hand Portland their lone loss of the season.

It's for sequences like that the Clippers gave up so much to acquire Chris Paul, and the all-world point guard is repaying the team's good faith so far this season.