How will Chris Paul fare as a part-time shooting guard?

James Harden and Chris Paul will have to share playmaking responsibilities if they are to reach their full potential as teammates on the Rockets this season. It certainly wouldn’t have been as big of a deal prior to last season, but Harden put together one of the most dominant individual seasons ever in 2016-17 functioning as a point guard in Mike D’Antoni’s system. With the second-highest usage rating in the NBA, Harden averaged 29.1 points per game, lead the league with 11.2 assists per game and carried the Rockets to the third-best record in the Western Conference.

Since it was Harden’s first and only season as a “point guard,” it shouldn’t be a huge adjustment for him to return to his former position. However, D’Antoni and the Rockets wouldn’t be maximizing Harden’s scoring and playmaking potential if he’s not at least a part-time point guard next season, which would require Paul to move off ball and act as a part-time shooting guard when they’re on the floor together.

The reason to be optimistic about Paul’s ability to play shooting guard is he’s an excellent perimeter shooter. He has made 45.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers since the 2013-14 season, peaking as high as 50.0 percent and dropping no lower than 38.7 percent during those four years. The former is equivalent to what Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker and Stephen Curry posted in those situations last season. The latter is equivalent to what Gordon Hayward, Dirk Nowitzki and Harden posted.

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Paul’s success as a shooter last season put him on almost the same page as Patrick Beverley with an average of 1.10 points per spot-up possession. That bodes well for his fit next to Harden seeing as Beverley has long been regarded as the perfect guard to pair with Harden because of how comfortable he is spacing the floor and making plays as a secondary ball-handler. It’s why 32.6 percent of Beverley’s scoring was made up of spot-ups on the season, followed by pick-and-rolls at 26.9 percent.

Paul will obviously have more playmaking responsibility than Beverley, but it’s important he can be a similar threat from the perimeter when Harden has the ball in his hands. Only Kemba Walker created more points per game than Harden out of the pick-and-roll last season, and Harden scored a league-high 537 points in isolation. One of the reasons he’s practically impossible to stop in those situations — Harden averaged 1.01 points per pick-and-roll possession and 0.97 points per isolation possession last season — is the Rockets can space the floor as well as any team in the league by surrounding him with at least three 3-point shooters at all times.

For Beverley, that usually meant spotting-up in the corner on the weakside while Ryan Anderson popped to the perimeter and Clint Capela dove to the basket.

It’s likely where Paul will find himself next season, then, when Harden runs a pick-and-roll with Anderson and/or Capela at the top of the perimeter.

Harden won’t post the same volume in those play types as last season, but Paul has never played with someone who can create as well as he can for himself and others in the half court, especially out of the pick-and-roll. It’s therefore no surprise Paul’s frequency off-ball pales in comparison to Beverley’s. Not only did spot-ups account for less than 10.0 percent of Paul’s scoring last season, Beverley attempted more catch-and-shoot 3-pointers in 2016-17 (208) than Paul attempted in 2015-16 and 2016-17 combined (149).

For perspective, Paul’s catch-and-shoot frequency from the perimeter last season was similar to the likes of Isaiah Canaan (66 attempts), Ish Smith (63), Dwyane Wade (55) and Michael-Carter Williams (55) whereas Beverley’s was similar to Kemba Walker (216), Seth Curry (212), Rodney Hood (195) and Damian Lillard (191). Stephen Curry was way ahead of them both with 366 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts.

The most catch-and-shoot 3-pointers Paul has attempted over the last four seasons is 111, which just so happens to be when he made 38.7 percent of those opportunities. He is instead more comfortable creating his own shot. Paul was one of 12 qualified players — a list that included DeMar DeRozan, Eric Bledsoe, John Wall, Russell Westbrook and Harden — to have less than 22.0 percent of their made field goal assisted last season. His reliance on pull-ups (75.0 percent of his total shot attempts) plays a commanding role in so few of his baskets being assisted.

None of this is to say Paul can’t succeed in a similar role to Beverley. It’s simply not one we’ve seen him in much of before. He has developed into one of the best shooters in the NBA, both from mid-range and the perimeter, but not necessarily in a way that complements another ball-dominant guard like Harden.

Fortunately for the Rockets, Harden is an accurate shooter as well. Although spot-ups only represented 5.0 percent of his offense last season, he ranked in the 90.6 percentile with 1.20 points per possession. He relied on spot-ups slightly more the season prior, when they made up 8.2 percent of his offense and he ranked in the 96.7 percentile with 1.27 points per possession. He also made 38.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers last season on a decent sample size of 190 attempts.

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That means Paul and Harden have the tools to dominate as point guards and shooting guards in D’Antoni’s system. It might just take Paul slightly longer than Harden to make the adjustments necessary to thrive in both considering how little time he’s spent playing off-ball to this point in his career.