Chris Paul, the 12-time All-Star selection and two-time Olympic gold medalist, “Point God,” announced his retirement Friday, concluding a 21-season career that will surely merit induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Paul made the announcement on the first day of the NBA All-Star Weekend at the Los Angeles Clippers in Inglewood, California. Paul spent his final season — an abbreviated season — with the Clippers, who brought him back in December and ended up trading him to Toronto earlier this month.
The Raptors knew Paul would never play in Toronto, raising questions about whether the Wake Forest legend would try to finish the season with another team in pursuit of the thing he never had — an NBA title.
The answer came on Friday. It’s over. He said last summer that he hated missing out on the events with his children over the past few years, and now he can devote himself much more to his family and other interests.
“It is time for me to show up for others and in other ways,” Paul wrote on a social media post announcing the decision.
He strongly hinted earlier this season that this year would be his last. A four-time All-NBA First Team selection, Paul ranks second in NBA history with 12,552 assists and 2,728 steals. 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 also done so since then.
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’ first two Pacific Division titles and three playoff series victories. Paul returned to Los Angeles as a free agent last July, rejoining a club fans love, but things went wrong quickly, and Paul’s last game with the Clippers was on December 1.
It turned out to be his last game in the NBA.
“As this chapter of being an NBA player comes to an end, the game of basketball will forever be ingrained in the DNA of my life, spanning three decades,” Paul wrote. “It’s crazy to even say that!! Playing basketball for a living has been an incredible blessing that also came with the loss of responsibility. I’ve embraced it all.”
Paul is one of seven players to have an NBA career spanning at least 21 seasons. And he’s already in the Hall of Fame: The 2008 Olympic “Recovery Team” was honored as part of the Class of 2025. It won’t be long before he’s inducted into his own, too.
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