Eye-popping Chris Paul stat an early and important concern for Spurs

We're three games into the Chris Paul experience in San Antonio, and so far, it has been a mixed bag. Paul was one of the lone bright spots in the Spurs season-opening loss to the Dallas Mavericks, but despite that, it's not all roses and butterflies in South Texas—especially after losing the Spurs versus Houston Rockets part two extravaganza.

Paul's veteran leadership has shined early. When he's on the court, San Antonio plays with more organization and control—a style that's sharply contrasted with the helter-skelter, sometimes manic rate the younger Spurs play at.

Paul is largely passing the eye test, but a closer look at his advanced metrics paints a much different picture. Again, take this with a tablespoon of salt, but through the first two games Paul posted a -22 net rating driven by the lowest offensive rating (95.8) and 3rd highest defensive rating (117.8). As Paul himself once said, "sh*t went bad real quick."

In the Houston rematch, CP3 scored more, putting up 16 points, but he only assisted three baskets while turning the ball over three times—not a healthy balance.

Early struggles shouldn't cause alarm for Chris Paul and Spurs

Are these early struggles concerning? For sure. Should the Spurs continue to keep a pulse on them as the season moves forward? Without a doubt. Is it worth panicking over? Absolutely not.

Let's be sure to ground ourselves in where we are. We are a few games into the regular season. The San Antonio Spurs have played a whopping 144 minutes of basketball. That is far too low of a sample size to make a firm determination on anything, let alone the potential impact of a player who hadn't shared the floor with his teammates in a real game before last week.

If you only look at a spreadsheet, you can make any determination you want. Victor Wembanyama has the Spurs' second-worst net rating behind Paul. Zach Collins has the second-best.

Does that mean Zach Collins is better than Wemby? Or that the Spurs should panic because Wembanyama hasn't been everything they'd hoped for and more in the first two games? No, it's simply an output of the limited data we have to measure this team.

Keep in mind the Spurs aren't even in their final form yet. Devin Vassell still needs to be reintegrated into the team and should provide a sizeable bump to the Spurs' performance on both ends of the floor. And there's so much more to be seen from a potential Paul & Stephon Castle backcourt pairing.

We don't have a firm timetable for when Vassell will rejoin the Spurs. Gregg Popovich has previously said to expect Vassell back with the team sometime in early November, and so far there hasn't been any reason to suspect that has changed. Give Paul a month to mesh with the full starting lineup and then get back to me. I'll bet you'll be surprised by what you see.