In the 2005 NBA Draft, three players were selected before Chris Paul.

Australian-born Naismith winner Andrew Bogut went first to the Milwaukee Bucks, a team with two young point guards—T.J. Ford and Mo Williams—hoping to fill a hole at center. He topped out as a solid post threat and rebounder before injuries derailed his career over the last couple seasons.

The second pick belonged to the Atlanta Hawks, a franchise in desperate need of a franchise point guard. Instead of choosing Paul, the super-productive yet diminutive playmaker, the Hawks chose Marvin Williams, a 6'9" forward who'd flashed great promise as a freshman sixth man on North Carolina's national title team. Good at many things but great at none, Williams has been a huge disappointment, providing below-average efficiency as the third option on some decent Hawks teams before being traded prior to last season straight-up for Devin Harris, whose career has been in a freefall since he was the centerpiece of Dallas' 2008 trade for Jason Kidd.

The Utah Jazz took 6'3" point guard Deron Williams with the third pick and can't be blamed for that choice, as the Illinois product has had a very productive pro career featuring three All-Star appearances.

Paul went fourth to the New Orleans Hornets, won Rookie of the Year in 2006, and in the seven years since has established himself as the best point guard in basketball. The Hawks, still looking for that franchise cornerstone, have been kicking themselves ever since; they're now targeting Paul in free agency and, in fact, violated NBA tampering rules by saying as much in a press release.

You probably know where I'm going with this. The NBA Draft is tomorrow night and Michigan's Trey Burke is expected to go anywhere from second to eighth. Brian has posted this before, but I want to once again draw your attention to Grantland's "NBA Job Interview" with Burke:

If YouTube is blocked or you don't want to watch the video, at the :32 mark Bill Simmons asks Burke to say which current pro is the type of player he'd like to be. Burke, without hesitation, says Chris Paul; look around for the various pre-draft content and this is his established ceiling. Simmons immediately fires back with what, at least from my impression, is the biggest doubt NBA GMs have about Burke's ability to become the next CP3:

The one thing about Chris Paul, though, is he's thick. When he goes down low, and he bounces off guys, they kinda bounce off him, too. The one thing I noticed with you in college, you would bounce off guys sometimes and you would take hard falls...

I didn't follow Paul's college career too closely, so I did three things after watching the above clip. First, I went to Burke's and Paul's respective NBADraftNet profiles, which has their pre-draft measurements.

Burke: 5'11.75" w/o shoes, 6'1.25" w/ shoes, 6'5.5" wingspan, 187 pounds, 3 bench press reps (185 lbs.)
Paul: 5'11.75" w/o shoes, 6'1" w/ shoes, 6'4.25" wingspan, 178 pounds, 10 bench press reps (185 lbs.)

Burke is, in fact, a little bit bigger than Paul was when he came out of college, and while Paul has clearly added muscle since he was drafted, his listed weight is still at 178 pounds. The difference is in their strength — Paul performed much better on the bench press.

The second thing I did was watch Paul's college highlights, and boy do they look a lot like Burke's:

At this stage in their careers, Burke and Paul had similar body types as well as similar games; both made their hay by dominating the ball, effortlessly finding ways to the rim, passing at a level that often caught teammates off-guard, and knocking down outside shots to keep defenses honest. Paul looks stronger at the rim than Burke and has a few more jaw-dropping passes in his arsenal; otherwise, they're practically doppelgangers.

The third thing I did was to compare their final college seasons statistically, a convenient comparison in this instance since both left school after their sophomore seasons. The full rundown can be found at StatSheet, which is the source for this (chart?) chart:

Despite a much higher usage (28.9% vs. 23.1%) and a longer three-point line (20'9" vs. 19'9"), Burke and Paul have near-identical offensive ratings; Burke boasts a better assist rate, fewer turnovers, and a higher eFG% despite attempting 28% of his team's shots against Paul's 20%. Paul has one major advantage, getting to the free-throw line at a much higher clip.

Simmons' point holds true, as far as I can tell, though it's an issue of strength, not size; Burke and Paul are near-identical in all other regards, but Paul was better in college at taking contact and continued to develop that talent in the NBA — look at his shooting heat map from this year, which shows his impressive efficiency in the paint and at the basket.

Can Burke make up this ground? I think it's possible. For one, his work ethic is tough to match, and obviously that's the largest obstacle between a player and adding strength. The videos of Burke working out before he arrived at Michigan are something I always point to when discussing his seemingly out-of-nowhere rise to the top of the college basketball world. For some reason I can't embed the video, but look at Burke's face as he's about to arrive at his after-school workout destination: the steps of the 94-foot-tall Hoover Dam* in Columbus.

Burke has also bulked up since he arrived at Michigan; while he's still on the skinny side, he's more defined than he was as a high-schooler and has added 15-20 pounds of muscle since arriving in Ann Arbor. That hasn't taken away from his game one bit—in fact, his finishing has improved—and he should be able to continue adding weight to his frame without losing athleticism or explosiveness.

Then there's the shooting aspect. While Paul was a very good three-point shooter in college (47.0% for his career), he's been just okay in that regard as a pro (35.6%, and the only time he's cracked 40% was in 2010 when he had a career-low 127 attempts). Burke's college numbers are worse, but they came under different circumstances — the longer line, of course, and also Michigan's late-clock "do something, Trey" offense. Rarely did he have the chance to catch and shoot; according to hoop-math.com, just 49% of Burke's three-pointers were assisted last year, while every other Michigan regular had a figure at or above 85%. If Burke ends up on a team with enough proficient ballhandlers to allow him to occasionally spot up, not just run high pick-and-rolls and choose to drive or pull the trigger, this could be an area where he's more effective than Paul.

Do I think Trey Burke will be better than Chris Paul? No, probably not. Paul's strength is a bigger asset at the NBA level than in college, and while I believe that Burke will improve in that regard, he's starting from well behind where Paul was at this stage — his around-the-rim finishing and free throw rate may never match Paul's. CP3 is also one of the league's best defensive point guards, and while a good part of that is his Burkian thievery—Paul has led the NBA in steals five times—it's also a product of his strength, which allows him to hold his own one-on-one against bigger guards.

Do I think that Trey Burke could become as effective as Chris Paul, just in a slightly different manner? Yes. The key here will be the development of Burke's outside shooting. We already know he has NBA range—just ask Kansas—and if he can become a 40%-plus outside shooter it'll open up room for the other parts of game.

I won't make the argument that Burke should go first overall—the Cavs have quite a point guard in Kyrie Irving, anyway—or even that he should go to Orlando at #2 (Victor Oladipo and Ben McLemore are both exceptional athletes with NBA-ready skill sets). With less-proven players like Nerlens Noel, Alex Len, and Anthony Bennett likely to go off the board before Burke, though, I think it's safe to say there will be at least one team dealing with regret down the line, and for a long time at that.

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*Not to be confused with the better-known Hoover Dam on the Arizona/Nevada border.