Asking the NBA’s reigning leader in assists per game to play off the ball more is a bold approach. Asking a guy like Chris Paul to do so in Year 18, when he’s been playmaking at an elite level for the last 17 years of his Hall-of-Fame career, is an even bolder proposition.

And yet, a more sacrificial Point God could be exactly what the Phoenix Suns need to find their redemption.

“I’m excited about it,” Paul said of ceding the reins a bit more this season. “It’s something we’ve been talking about actually for a couple years, but the only way you get better at something like that is actually incorporating it.”

As Paul notes, this slight tweak to the offense has been in the works for a while now. Coach Monty Williams mentioned during his end-of-season exit interviews that he regretted not putting secondary ball-handlers like Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and Landry Shamet in more situations where they might create offense, since Phoenix’s playoff offense was bogged down when defenses honed in on taking away Paul and Devin Booker.

Throughout training camp, one of the biggest changes has been a concerted focus on allowing those three — and Deandre Ayton in the post — to initiate more offense. Whether it’s outright plugging CP3 into Booker’s spot (or other set positions in the Suns’ plays), or simply letting Bridges and Johnson dribble the ball up the floor to the team’s “sweet spot” to start the play, Phoenix has made it a point of emphasis to put key, secondary playmakers in this sort of trial by fire.

That means Paul and even Booker taking a backseat at times, with the long-term goal outweighing the short-term struggles.

“You have to give him and Book credit,” Williams said. “The ability to say, ‘Okay, I’ll do that’ says a lot about them and how badly they want to win. And what I’ve stressed to them is, as a team, we have to get comfortable with uncomfortable change. These are things that we feel like we have to do to be a better team.”

There’s no excusing the Suns’ preseason loss to the Adelaide 36ers, but among the few silver linings for those actually searching for basketball takes was how effective the starting unit was, even with their star backcourt taking on a more passive role.

Paul still made the most of his opportunities, finishing with 12 assists in just 22 minutes. Many of them were of a familiar variety, as the Point God located Deandre Ayton in the pick-and-roll, slipped him the ball with precision passes and let the big fella feast on clear runways to the hoop:

However, as reassuring as it was to see Paul and Ayton’s impeccable chemistry is still intact, the most notable change was how aggressive DA and Bridges were in looking for their own offense.

Ayton was assertive on the block, engineering some of his own looks off the dribble en route to 22 points on 11-of-14 shooting. Bridges, meanwhile, finished with 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting, frequently taking the ball up the court himself in transition and kicking off a few of the Suns’ half-court sets.

“The key is just guys like me and Cam, everybody else, to help Book and C to handle the ball and just relieve pressure,” Bridges said after Sunday’s game. “So it felt good. I think that’s the next step for our team and personally, myself, and Cam and everyone else.”

When Phoenix pushed the pace with the ball in Bridges’ or Johnson’s hands, Paul was able to cleverly size up the defense, picking Adelaide apart in a trailer role we don’t often see from him.

Fanning out to the wing and catching the rock from the lead ball-handler on the break, on three separate occasions, Paul scoped out Ayton on a quick seal for an and-1, hit a trailing Bridges for 3 and fed Bridges on an interior quick seal for another and-1.

In the half-court, Paul was plugged into a few off-ball spots while Bridges and Johnson initiated the offense.

Putting the Point God in Booker’s place for a few sets allowed him to catch the ball curling around a double-drag screen, get downhill on a defense scrambling against this variation of the Spain pick-and-roll, and find Ayton for an easy lob:

On another set, Johnson started with the ball, gave it to Paul in a dribble handoff, and as CP3 careened around two screens, he zipped it back to Johnson on the wing, who capitalized on a lax closeout with a pull-up jumper off the bounce.

The differences are subtle from Paul’s usual assists, and the plays still end with the Point God finding his teammates in advantageous situations, but they spare him the energy of having to dribble the ball up the court and run everything himself.

As good as it looked in spurts against the 36ers, Williams believes they still have a ton of room for improvement.

“It’s just something that we feel like is gonna be really good for us,” Williams said. “He can play off the ball, he can have live-ball situations, especially when we’re in the penalty. That’s when Chris can get you shots at the free-throw line and it allows us to set our defense. If I had to grade it right now or give it a level 1-10, I’d say it’s at a three. Even though it looked decent the other day, I just think there’s so many things that we’re going to be able to do off of it.”

The Suns relish the idea of getting Paul more catch-and-shoot looks, which makes sense for a guy who’s historically been highly efficient on those shots. But it won’t be an easy, overnight adjustment by any means — even for a guy with Chris Paul’s basketball IQ.

Over his first 17 years in the league, Paul had never dipped below a 20 percent usage rate until last season (19.7 percent), per NBA.com. One preseason game where Paul only logged 22 minutes is hardly going to set the new standard, but just for a point of reference, his usage on Sunday was a mere 9.6 percent.

No one should expect that to be the norm moving forward, and both Williams and Paul were quick to point out that he’s still the point guard.

“Growing the offense away from Chris and Book, but also understanding that’s not something we’re gonna go away from,” Williams said. “We don’t want to just take the ball out of their hands for 48 minutes. We ain’t gonna win a lot of games doing that. But there are veins of our offense that we can grow with those guys away from the ball.”

And that’s where the emphasis lies: Paul sacrificing here and there could open up a lot for his younger teammates who still have room to grow.

“Over the course of the game, it’s gonna be hopefully more possessions like that, one of them handling and whatnot, but at the end of the day, Devin’s still gonna be a scorer, DA still gonna be the big man, we all still who we are,” he said. “But incorporating other ways to play can be great for our team.”

In terms of “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable,” it doesn’t get much more uncomfortable than plugging one of the greatest pure point guards in league history into more off-ball situations. That sacrificial mindset reminds Williams of another Hall-of-Famer who had to tailor his approach later in his career to keep winning: Peyton Manning.

“I think the great ones, if they want something they’ve never had, I think they figured it out a long time ago, but they implement it maybe later in their careers: ‘This is what I gotta do if I want to get something that I’ve never gotten before,'” Williams said. “If you think about Peyton Manning, when he was in Denver, he probably didn’t throw any pass more than 20 yards the whole year long. He was checking down like every play, and a lot of it was because he couldn’t with his neck situation, so he had to adapt. I just think great ones figure it out, that they have to sacrifice to get something that they’ve never gotten before. And I think Chris is in that mode right now.”

Clearly, this isn’t some power struggle between a coach pushing in one direction and an 18-year veteran pushing in the other; as Paul and Williams noted, it’s a change that’s been in the works. Bridges mentioned how often Paul’s been in his ear telling him to be confident and aggressive with the ball in his hands, and Booker said everyone’s on the same page as far as these new wrinkles are concerned.

“For us now, I don’t want to say it like this, but it’s two different seasons: There’s the regular season and the playoffs, and we’ve realized that,” Booker said. “So the regular season is a good time to not only win games but work on those habits and throw in things that we feel that are going to come down later in the line when it matters for us.”

Aside from empowering Bridges and Johnson to build on their offensive repertoires, there’s also the obvious benefit of preserving a 37-year-old Chris Paul — who will be 38 during the Suns’ next postseason — for what the team hopes will be a deep playoff run.

For now, Williams is mostly swapping players into different positions within their offensive sets, avoiding too many additional wrinkles until the guys get their assignments down at spots that are new to them. But even getting the ball out of Paul’s hands, letting someone else worry about time, score and situation, and sparing CP3 of having to back down or zig-zag past pesky defenders hoping for an 8-second violation should help.

As Paul heads into his 18th season, the Suns are more aware than ever that they need the Point God to be healthy to win this franchise’s first title. From flying him home to Los Angeles on off-days to be with his family, to having other guys initiate the offense, Williams is cognizant of the many avenues they can use to help “fill his cup.”

“I’ve already heard Chris talk about how nice it is to not have to bring the ball down the floor every time,” Williams said. “And I think that’s going to be a way to keep Chris fresh early in the season and especially late.”