In leading his team to an NBA-best 10-2 start, Clippers point guard Chris Paul has been arguably the league's best player. Behind career-high 45.8 percent 3-point shooting, Paul leads the NBA in player efficiency rating (PER) and Basketball-Reference.com's win shares.
Earlier this week, Paul offered an unlikely explanation for why he's off to such a hot start: corrected vision. Paul shared with reporters that after years of faking his way through eye tests and squinting to see play calls from the sideline, he underwent Lasik eye surgery over the summer.
"My brother sent me a text the other day saying my percentage is up because of my Lasik eye surgery," Paul said. "I was laughing, but my doctor did the surgery -- who was amazing by the way -- his other clients, he said their percentages actually went up the next season."
Could Lasik really explain why Paul is shooting so well? Let's take a look.
Lasik in the NBA
It's reasonable to think that better vision could have performance benefits on the court. There is some limited evidence that baseball players hit better after having Lasik surgery -- though, oddly, that seems to manifest itself more in improved power than better contact or plate discipline.
Paul isn't the first NBA player to have his eyesight corrected. Close friend LeBron James underwent Lasik surgery in 2007, while Dwyane Wade had the surgery in summer 2011. All told, I found 10 players whose surgery dates I could validate and who played regular minutes before and after Lasik.
A first cut of the data suggests performance improvement in the NBA. Naturally, the place we'd expect clear vision to matter most is in shooting, and the players I found indeed shot better the season after surgery than the season before.
For a player like Paul, who attempted 329 3-pointers last season, a 1.8 percent improvement in accuracy beyond the arc would translate into six additional triples.
Alas, there's a problem with considering just before-and-after stats. Besides ignoring the effect of aging (a 22-year-old player like James at the time of his surgery would be expected to improve his shooting either way), it also leaves out the effect of regression to the mean. It's no surprise that players would be somewhat more likely to have Lasik after a poor season than a good one, explaining their low 3-point percentage in the before category.
Rudy Gay is a good example. He didn't have surgery after shooting 39.6 percent from 3-point range in 2011-12. No, it was only after he shot 31.2 percent and 32.3 percent the following two years that Gay had Lasik, overcoming his self-admitted "stigma" about touching his eyes.
We can account for this effect by using my SCHOENE projections, which utilize multiple seasons of data and a regression factor to better project future performance. And when we compare those to performance after Lasik surgery, the effect decreases substantially.
As a group, players who have their vision corrected still beat their projections in terms of shooting, but now the difference is just one 3-pointer per season for someone like Paul.
Paul's start probably random
Of course, the fact that Lasik hasn't done much to help NBA players shoot better in the past doesn't rule out the possibility of it helping Paul individually. Each player is unique in terms of his vision problems and willingness to wear corrective aids (typically contacts).
Still, Paul isn't the first player with severe myopia, or nearsightedness, to try to play though it. Gay said he could hardly get his driver's license before surgery. Gay's 3-point percentage bounced back from 32.3 percent all the way to ... 33 percent, worse than SCHOENE projected. (Gay did beat SCHOENE's projections for 2-point percentage and free throw percentage.)
Then there's the case of former No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett, who had his vision corrected after a dreadful rookie season.
"Anything far, I couldn't really see," Bennett told SI.com. "I couldn't see the people in the stands." Despite undergoing Lasik surgery, Bennett fell short of his SCHOENE projections in all shooting categories and had his contract bought out after the season.
The more likely explanation for Paul's fast start is that, well, it's the start. Paul had a 12-game stretch last January in which he shot 50 percent from 3-point range (30-for-60), but it didn't attract as much attention in the middle of the season.
Though such hot and cold streaks are typical throughout the year, the human brain has been hardwired by evolution to seek a cause -- be it Lasik, a players-only meeting or extra shooting practice -- instead of accepting them as randomness.
A different way to see it
To their credit, the San Antonio Spurs have done just that -- factored in random variation -- with Danny Green, who also underwent Lasik surgery after suffering through a season-long shooting slump in 2015-16. Last season, Green made just 33.2 percent of his 3-point attempts, down from 40 percent or better each of the previous four years.
"I'm not sure that [Lasik surgery is] gonna [be] a significant factor in his recovery," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said during training camp. "He'll be fine. He always plays good defense. So he'll make more shots this year. It just happens. It's called sports. Sometimes, hitters don't hit."
"I got the procedure done, [and] it helps," added Green. "But that wasn't the reason why I was shooting poorly. Some seasons, you have good ones. Sometimes, you have bad ones."
Green's 3-point shooting has indeed improved this season, but it's not nearly as accurate as it was in the four seasons before his slump.
While this has been an outstanding stretch of shooting for Chris Paul, it's unlikely Lasik is the explanation.