4. He’s injury-prone
Coupled with his age is the injury risk that Paul possesses.
In both the 2016 and 2018 NBA Playoffs, the All-Star point guard suffered injuries that ended his season, and not surprisingly, his teams got eliminated from the playoffs shortly thereafter.
In addition, he hasn’t played more than 70 regular-season games since the 2015-16 season. In his 15 NBA seasons, he’s appeared in over 70 regular-season games only six times.
If the Lakers acquire Paul, they’ll be depending on him to play a major role in winning championship number 18. If he gets injured in the regular season and misses a good chunk of games, or gets hurt in the postseason and misses lots of time there, it would be a huge blow to the team’s title hopes.
One of the reasons it so hard to win back-to-back championships is that the wear and tear builds up and it gets harder to avoid injury.
New blood really helps, but the players you add, especially if they’re to play a large role, need to be young enough and durable enough.