re: Who would you rather have Anthony Davis or Chris Paul in the long run?

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1. I doubt Chris Paul ever makes the playoffs playing with nothing but D-Leaguers and end of the bench guys.

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Kobe's rosters from 05-07 were on par with Paul's Hornets rosters. Yes Smush Parker played a ton of minutes for those teams and he was terrible. But you do realize in 08-09, Rasual Butler played the third most minutes for the Hornets. In 10-11 it was Marco Belinelli. Paul had one year with guys playing to their potential. He got 56 wins, destroyed the Mavs in round 1, and bounced in 7 by the Spurs in the 2nd round. Oh, the horror.

People seem to have hazy memories regarding the 07-08 team. No one expected them to be that good. It wasn't some juggernaut- if anything it was a fluke year. The team relied on 3 things: Paul having an all time season, Peja and Chandler shockingly staying healthy, and West maxing out. The rest was smoke and mirrors, as evidenced by their slide into mediocrity after that season.

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2. LeBron never won shite playing in Cleveland? News to me

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From 05-10, Cleveland got out of the second round in the East twice. They went to the Finals once during one of the weakest years the East has seen (53 wins for the 1 seed, 47 and 44 won the other two divisions- the Cavs had 50 wins). Switch conferences for Cleveland and New Orleans and you don't think Paul goes farther in the playoffs?

If we're talking taking a guy in a vacuum, Paul is the clear winner here. If you want to argue that the nature of Paul's game- demanding the ball and control of the offense-, how damn good he is and his height limitations means that building a team around him is ultimately doomed, I think that is a very interesting discussion.