Great player. Not necessarily a great GM.
P much this.
I've gotten the feeling that Paul just wants to be a contrarian when he's on ESPN commentary shows. He'll stand behind patently foolish takes without providing much data or analysis as to why. It's particularly glaring when he's on set with people like Chauncy and Jalen, who are both at least moderately knowledgeable about both league and front office workings.
In this clip his main point was he wouldn't trade Tatum for Davis even if Kyrie left as a result of not moving Tatum. That is what he was answering from my interpretation. His justification was that keeping Kyrie isn't as important as keeping Tatum because PGs typically aren't the best player on a championship team.
I think in that trade scenario most everyone would agree that Davis would be the best player on our team (okay okay it's obviously still Smart). And to Paul's point, teams with dominant forwards have won NBA Finals, as often as the last 7/10 times in the last decade.
His assertion that elite PGs aren't necessary to winning an NBA championship is pretty specious as well. Curry is obviously essential to the Warriors championships, as was Kyrie in Cleveland's. I don't think they are essential per se, but having one isn't a knock against you like he's making it sound.
Finally, the core of his reasoning is just so bogus. The question as I paraphrased above sets Jayson Tatum up against Kyrie AND Davis. There are no GMs in the league who would choose Tatum over both of those players, at least not ones that wanted to compete in short term. The only reason to keep Tatum under those conditions is if you thought there was zero chance Davis stays long term. Even then I think it's still a tough choice.
He also mentioned that we have "a few" versatile forwards and what we need is a big man. Omitting that Horford has done a fantastic job as of late, I think he's making the opposing point that we are overstocked at one position and needy at another
So yeah, I loved Piece as a player, but his commentary is sometimes just bananas.