{"id":477529,"date":"2025-12-16T20:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/477529\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T20:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:55:14","slug":"chris-paul-tried-changing-clippers-minds-before-tense-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/477529\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Paul tried changing Clippers’ minds before tense divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tense divorce between the Clippers and veteran point guard Chris Paul was weeks in the making before the 12-time All-star ultimately was sent home by the team<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

ESPN released a lengthy report Tuesday<\/a> by NBA insider Ramona Shelburne taking a deep dive into the breakup, including details of a rift between Paul and Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue and assistant Jeff Van Gundy.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old Paul officially became trade eligible on Monday after signing a one-year, $3.6 million deal as a free agent over the summer to return to the franchise he previously played for from 2011-17.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Paul met with Clippers president Lawrence Frank on Dec. 2 in Atlanta following an argument with Van Gundy on the team plane from Miami. Paul \u201cdid not see it coming\u201d when Frank informed him the team was sending him back to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\"LosChris Paul tried using Brook Lopez (left) as a \u201ccharacter witness\u201d before his split with the team. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul was stunned, sources said, and tried to plead his case,\u201d Shelburne wrote. \u201cAt one point, he brought teammate Brook Lopez into the room as something of a character witness.<\/p>\n

\u201cLopez and [Kawhi] Leonard were Paul\u2019s most ardent supporters on the team, sources said. Paul reminded Frank that he\u2019d asked him to facilitate another meeting with Lue and that hadn\u2019t happened. Frank acknowledged that, but held firm. The decision had been made.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 21st NBA season, Paul appeared in 16 games this season, all off the bench, with career-low averages of 2.9 points and 3.3 assists in just 14.3 minutes per game.<\/p>\n

The Clippers were 5-16 at the time of the future Hall of Famer\u2019s departure, and they\u2019ve dropped four of five since he was sent packing to fall to 6-20 overall in 14th place in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

\"JeffJeff Van Gundy talks with James Harden on the Clippers sideline. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

The ESPN report also described a 40-minute phone conversation between Lue and Paul in early November that began with Paul asking his coach why he\u2019d been benched for the second half of a game the previous night.<\/p>\n

The team had envisioned more of an \u201cend-of-the-bench\u201d leadership role for Paul despite him starting 82 games last season for the Spurs. But there also were complaints from teammates and coaches that the veteran often was \u201cabrasive\u201d while making suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how Chris is,\u201d one NBA executive with another team was quoted as saying. \u201cHe wears you out. He\u2019s convinced he\u2019s right \u2014 and he often is right, which kind of pisses you off \u2014 and he\u2019ll go around to everyone until you agree with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul issued an apology to the team on Nov. 11 for coming across as too negative or divisive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tense divorce between the Clippers and veteran point guard Chris Paul was weeks in the making before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,2596,523,4902,135,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-477529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chris-paul","10":"tag-jeff-van-gundy","11":"tag-lawrence-frank","12":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115731243448427135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}