i'm with you in this thread in overall terms, but i'm not sure i can endorse "he's playing poorly." in the last 5 games, he has 54 points on 47 shots (1.15 pps) and has played far better defense than al and even better than derrick has been in certain long stretches where he got exposed, particularly in the home-and-home with the clippers. he also grabbed a rebound every 4 minutes in december and had an assist for every 3.8 shot attempts with an assist-to-TO ratio of 2.9.
(for comparison's sake, al's PPS over those 5 games was actually about the same because of his 30-points-on-22-shots explosion in LA. his rebounding was a hair better, but he only had an assist for every 7.4 attempts with a 2.1 A/TO ratio. so if you're corbin how do you explain to paul why al is better except in terms of sheer volume of shots? how do you explain to paul how al is more important to the team when you've played every bit as good as him on one end of the floor, and a hell of a lot better at the other end?)