Was Paul a detriment or a savior? I'm genuinely asking.
Fair question but I don't think it's as black and white as detriment vs. savior. To adequately answer it, I think you have to contextualize it by adding what brought CP to Houston, what role CP was supposed to fill, and what CP did in Houston. I'll add that I was mistaken in that CP was 32 and 33 in his 2 seasons in Houston, not 34.
In 2016-2017, we hired D'Antoni and MDA/Morey went pure moreyball. high PnR every possession, shoot more 3s than ever etc. We increased our 3p attempts per game from 30 to 40 in one season. in the playoffs, our rotation was Harden, Ariza, Gordon, Beverly, Capela, Nene, Ryno, Lou Williams. It became apparent that we had no secondary ball handlers/shot creators. Lou was shaky in the playoffs, Bev isn't a traditional PG, and EG isn't suited as a playmaker. When Harden sat, we were going to struggle. A lot of that is organizational philosophy and roster makeup. Recognizing the need for another creator, we trade for CP.
2017-2018 is CPs first season in houston. Brought in to be a secondary creator to take some playmaking responsibility and burden away from Harden. CP was a fantastic fit for this role because he still was able to run PnR and expose an isolation when teams switched and beat them. He was statistically one of the better isolation players in the league, behind Harden. This allowed us to actually sit and rest Harden for stretches without being concerned that the bench would hemorrhage a lead. This team also had Ariza + LMAM and I don't think it can be understated how valuable they were. IMO, if CP3 stays healthy that season, our roster makeup and variance playstyle gave us a punchers chance to beat GSW when literally no one else could even hang in the gym with them.
2018-2019 was one where CP was never healthy and we had roster turnover in cost saving measures. CP's numbers across the board were worse and his ability to beat defenders off the dribble was severely diminished. it culminated in an embarrassing playoff series against golden state where he legit struggled to get past kevon looney and jonas jerebko. Because of his diminished physical capacity, he no longer really was able to serve the purpose he was brought in for. Worse off, this was his second year in a row looking unhealthy and left a lot of people thinking he was the worst contract in the league and only going to get worse.
to try and sum up your question, i'd say CP was a "savior" in year 1 and a "detriment" in year 2.