{"id":604685,"date":"2026-02-15T15:02:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/604685\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:02:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:02:42","slug":"chris-paul-announces-nba-retirement-after-21-seasons-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/604685\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Paul announces NBA retirement after 21 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/dplkaq00ndxvg73x.jpg\" alt=\"PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Clippers send Chris Paul home in shocking move\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">LOS ANGELES &#8211; Chris Paul, the legendary &#8220;Point God&#8221; who redefined floor generalship for a generation, has officially announced his retirement from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/sports\/nba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NBA.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTTV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Paul, 40, confirmed his decision via an Instagram post on Friday, February 13.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">In his retirement statement, Paul reflected on his long journey with gratitude.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;This is it! After over 21 years I&#8217;m stepping away from basketball. As I write this, it&#8217;s hard to really know what to feel, but for once \u2013 most people would be surprised \u2013 I don&#8217;t have the answer lol! But, mostly I&#8217;m filled with so much joy and gratitude! While this chapter of being an &#8216;NBA player&#8217; is done, the game of basketball will forever be engrained in the DNA of my life,&#8221; he wrote in part.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">The announcement came shortly after the Toronto Raptors officially waived him, following a trade deadline deal from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=FOXLA+tag+los+angeles+clippers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Los Angeles Clippers <\/a>earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTTV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">The 12-time All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medalist has earned four All-NBA first team selections, and he ranks second in NBA history with 12,552 assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">He was the first player to score at least 20,000 points while recording at least 10,000 assists; LeBron James and Russell Westbrook have both since done that as well.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">PREVIOUS COVERAGE:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Paul became arguably the most accomplished player in Clippers franchise history while leading the team to six winning seasons from 2011-17, including the Clippers\u2019 first two Pacific Division titles and three playoff series victories. Paul returned to Los Angeles as a free agent last July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: This report is based on direct social media statements from Chris Paul&#8217;s official Instagram account and previous FOX 11 reports. The Associated Press contributed.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/sports\/nba\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/sports\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sports<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/sports\/nba\/clippers\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/series\/instastories\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instastories<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES &#8211; Chris Paul, the legendary &#8220;Point God&#8221; who redefined floor generalship for a generation, has officially&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,3023,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,67,651,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-604685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-instastories","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-clippers","13":"tag-laclippers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesclippers","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-series","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116075256488357157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604685","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=604685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}