After being waived by the Raptors on Friday, Chris Paul has officially announced his retirement from the NBA, confirming his decision in an Instagram post.
“This is it!” he wrote as part of a longer statement. “After over 21 years I’m stepping away from basketball.
“… While this chapter of being an ‘NBA player’ is done, the game of basketball will forever be ingrained in the DNA of my life. I’ve been in the NBA for more than half of my life, spanning three decades. It’s crazy even saying that! Playing basketball for a living has been an unbelievable blessing that also came with lots of responsibility. I embraced it all. The good and the bad.
“As a lifelong learner, leadership is hard and is not for the weak. Some will like you and many people won’t. But the goal was always the goal, and my intentions were always sincere (Damn, I love competing!). It feels really good knowing that I played and treated this game with the utmost respect since the day my dad introduced me to it.”
Paul’s decision brings an end to the career of one of the NBA’s all-time great point guards. The former Wake Forest star, who was drafted fourth overall in 2005, spent 21 seasons in the league, appearing in 1,370 total regular season games and another 149 playoff contests for seven franchises.
Paul earned 12 All-Star berths and 11 All-NBA nods, won the 2006 Rookie of the Year award, was the MVP of the 2013 All-Star game, and led the league in assists five times and steals six times. He also made nine All-Defensive teams (including seven first teams) and was part of the NBA’s 75th anniversary squad.
The North Carolina native began his NBA career with New Orleans, spending six seasons as a member of the then-Hornets, before he was traded to the Clippers in 2011. Former NBA commissioner David Stern, who was acting as the de facto owner of New Orleans’ team at that time while the league sought a buyer, controversially vetoed a trade that would have sent Paul to the Lakers before signing off on a deal sending CP3 to Los Angeles’ other team.
The best stretch of Paul’s career arguably came during his first five seasons in L.A. — he was named an All-Star and an All-Defensive first teamer while also finishing in the top seven of the MVP vote in each of those five years. Although those “Lob City” Clippers never made a deep playoff run, they won postseason series in three of five years after Paul had won just a single series during his time in New Orleans.
Paul, who was traded to Houston during the 2017 offseason, subsequently had stints with the Rockets, Thunder, Suns, Warriors, and Spurs before returning to the Clippers for his final season last summer. The reunion with the Clippers turned sour in the fall as the team decided to part ways with him due to the poor cultural fit. He was traded to Toronto at last week’s deadline before being waived and making his retirement announcement on Friday.
Despite the anticlimactic end to his career – and the fact that he never won an NBA championship – Paul is a surefire future Hall-of-Famer who made the All-Star game with four different teams and will retire holding the No. 2 spot on the NBA’s all-time list of assists and steals leaders. He also served as the president of the National Basketball Players Association from 2013-21.
For his career, Paul averaged 16.8 points, 9.2 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.0 steals in 33.5 minutes per game, with a .469/.370/.870 shooting line.
Hell of a career for CP3 and a lot of it didn’t come from just the box score. Wish him the best into his retirement but it sucks that he didn’t get another chance this year and win a championship
BBIQ off the charts. Like having another coach on the floor.
Lob City was a lot of fun.
Also, one hamstring away from getting past the Warriors with HOU. huhu :(
You’d think a team looking to secretly tank would sign him and then play him 48 minutes a night???
Chris paul did play in the finals lol
Yup, 2021. Lost to the Bucks 4-2.
CP3 …… Best PG of his generation….
Old school PG. Played it like he was born to do it.
Thanks for the memories Chris HORide man. 🙏👏
What a GREAT career. Nails, tough as nails.
Thank you Point God! I really hopes he gets into coaching on some level
Calling it now, CP3 as coach of the Dubs replacing Kerr /s
He probably do tv analysis, FO, or player union type stuff before coaching I think.
They wont hire him; they’re all scared of accountability and real winners; thats why he got colluded out of the league, and why nobody will hire Gary Payton as a coach, despite him wanting to coach for uears
Monty Williams cost him a championship, and I will never forget it. Insane to play Ayton for 40 minutes a game b/c he played well in the 1 matchup he was useful in the previous series. You were up 2-0 in the finals, and I knew you were losing b/c you went away from the thing that got you there all season, while Milwaukee finally figured out to slowly reduce Brook Lopez’s minutes every game in the matchup
Chris Paul retires as the greatest PG not named Magic Johnson, in my opinion, ahead of Isiah Thomas. A true winner that never played with any others (except for 1 time where he was used weird, when the league already was done with him)
I just wish the Heat would have traded for him in 2019-2020 when they had the perfect chance
I cant believe he goes out as a scapegoat for clowns like James Harden, multiple times, and being colluded out of the league by people that will never win anything in their lives. No wonder nobody will hire Gary Payton as a coach; people are afraid of accountability and real winners
Not disagreeing at all just curious could you expand on what Monty did wrong especially after the first 2 games ?
Kept playing Ayton more and more while Brook Lopez had his minutes reduced as low as to 15 minutes…Kaminsky should have played more, once Saric got hurt in Game 1. Once Milwaukee finally went to Giannis and Portis at smallball 5, it was over. They gave up so many free corner 3s. Ayton cant guard pick and roll. They just kept watching the same thing over and over and over for 4 straight games; its actually the same way the Heat got swept that same year by Milwaukee; they kept playing Dedmond on multi big lineups, Milwaukee switched to Giannis and Portis at the 5, and it was over
Ayton playing 40 minutes a game made zero sense in any reality, and it was clear that while he was important to the previous matchup against Denver, whoch is when they started adding his minutes, they thought, lets do that for some reason in an unrelated series woth everything on the line
I agree that Monty Williams cost them the finals. He should’ve played a smaller player on Giannis and have Ayton come as a help defender.
Even though he put Torrey Craig on Giannis and Giannis immediately bumped into Craig’s knee and injured him – Monty should’ve kept throwing smaller bodies at Giannis, as Ayton was nowhere near keeping up with Giannis on the dribble.
We never saw mikal bridges ,cam Johnson, crowder, or saric on Giannis with Ayton backing them up, after Craig’s injury.
I will also never forget Jason kidd playing Hardy and Hardaway over Dante Exum in the finals. Dante had worked so hard to get back into elite shape after a serious midseason injury, and he finally got back to that peak shape, and despite that he played less minutes than Hardy and Hardaway. Dante was clearly the only player who could create shots for another teammate vs Boston, not named Kyrie or Luka.
Always liked CP3 even with the pause flop he perfected. Was a gamer. Didnt get it done on the biggest stage, but still a top-10 PG of all time. Clippers are such a clown organization and he brought them some relevancy. And they only proved that they’re now back to being clowns with how they dealt with CP3 at the end. If only the league allowed that trade he probably has a chip.