One of the most decorated, most productive point guards in NBA history is hanging up his sneakers after 21 professional seasons.
Chris Paul announced his retirement Friday on Instagram.
“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 wrote in a lengthy statement he posted to social media. “It was the very first relationship I ever knew.”
Paul earned 12 All-Star nods, made 11 All-NBA teams and was selected seven times to the NBA All-Defensive First Team.
Paul, who will turn 41 in May, was the first player in NBA history to compile at least 20,000 points and 10,000 assists. He ranks second in total career assists, with 12,552, trailing only John Stockton.
He was named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. He also served as president of the National Basketball Players Association from 2013 to 2021.
Paul will be remembered, in part, as a winner who never won the NBA’s ultimate prize.
He won Olympic gold medals playing for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Games and 2012 London Games.
But he never won an NBA title.
He came close, though. In 2021, his Phoenix Suns reached the NBA Finals and won the series’ first two games over the Milwaukee Bucks. Led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, the Bucks captured the next four games to clinch the series. Paul started all six games in that series, averaging 21.8 points and 8.2 assists per game.
In the 2018 Western Conference finals, Paul’s Houston Rockets and Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors split the series’ first four games. In Game 5, with the Rockets leading 95-94, Paul suffered a hamstring injury in the final minute of the fourth quarter. Houston won that game to take a 3-2 series lead, but Paul missed Game 6 and Game 7, and the Warriors won the series. In the NBA Finals, the Warriors swept the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Paul’s retirement comes after the Toronto Raptors acquired him in a three-team trade last week from the LA Clippers and, as expected, waived him.
The New Orleans Hornets drafted Paul fourth overall in 2005 out of Wake Forest, and he spent six seasons with New Orleans.
He was famously the centerpiece of a trade that would have sent him from New Orleans to the Los Angeles Lakers coming out of the 2011 lockout, but NBA commissioner David Stern vetoed the trade. The NBA owned the New Orleans franchise at the time. The move would have paired him with Kobe Bryant in the Lakers’ backcourt. New Orleans ultimately traded him to the Clippers a week later.
During his first of two stints with the Clippers, he teamed up with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to lead Lob City to six consecutive playoff appearances. Paul’s return this season to the Clippers was seen as a fitting end to his Hall of Fame career, but the reunion was short-lived, and the Clippers sent Paul home during a road trip in December.
The Raptors traded for Paul to move below the luxury-tax threshold. In the trade, they sent Ochai Agbaji and his $6.4 million salary to the Brooklyn Nets. Paul was playing on a minimum salary this season.
After leaving the Clippers in 2017, Paul played with the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.
In 14.3 minutes per game this season, Paul averaged 2.9 points, 3.3 assists and 0.7 steals in 16 games. Paul started all 82 games for the Spurs last season.
Paul’s next stop could be in broadcasting.
Paul has previously worked on ABC/ESPN’s NBA coverage and has had a close relationship with outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger. ESPN would be considered the favorite for Paul if he goes into broadcasting, per The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, though NBC and Amazon Prime Video could show interest, as well.
ESPN already has “Inside the NBA” as its top pregame show. It also just switched up its lead game team again, adding Tim Legler to Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson for The Finals, which doesn’t give a future Hall of Famer, like Paul, too many immediate marquee positions. ESPN’s has so much NBA programming, including “NBA Countdown,” it can always find a role. Two years ago, ESPN added Paul to its conference finals studio coverage.
In the statement he posted to Instagram, Paul said he expects to spend more time with his wife, Jada, and their two children, Chris II and Cam.
“So now with all the gratitude that I could possibly have … it’s time for me to show up for others … in other ways,” Paul wrote. “This last season I knew I couldn’t do it until I was at home with my family. Those six years away were a lot of sacrifice for all of us and I knew that had to come to an end. And I now know wholeheartedly the best teammate I can be is to Jada, Chris II and Cam!!”
The Athletic’s Law Murray, Jordy Fee-Platt and Caleb Slinkard contributed to this story.