Just a few weeks ago, Al Horford won his first NBA championship at 38 years of age and after 186 postseason games. Now, with Horford in possession of a ring, Chris Paul has moved into the top five in career NBA playoff games played (149) without winning an NBA championship.
Paul will be 39 in the 2023-24 NBA season. Yet, when faced with the opportunity to join a contender after being waved by the Golden State Warriors last month, Paul surprised many by forgoing a chance to join a playoff team and instead signed with the San Antonio Spurs, who went 22-60 last season and finished 14th out of 15 teams in the Western Conference standings.
“The opportunity to play, to hoop, to compete,” Paul responded. “Obviously this is a first-class organization, and for me, I love nothing more than the opportunity to play and contribute and hoop.”
Playing time had never been an issue through the first 18 years of Paul’s career, but it clearly was in his lone season with the Warriors, and from his own comments, Paul wasn’t happy with reduced minutes. After starting the first 1,214 games of his pro career, and averaging 34.4 minutes per game, Paul was relegated to back-up duty with the Warriors boasting two-time MVP Stephen Curry as the starting point guard.
Paul came off the bench in 40 games and started 18. His minutes also dropped to a career-low 26.4, which led to career lows across the board. Paul averaged just 9.2 points per game, about half of his career average of 17.9 entering the season. His 6.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game were also the lowest marks of his 19 years.
Even coming off a career-worst season, Paul was still coveted by many contenders, including both the Clippers and Lakers, both of whom made the playoffs last year. With the teams having established–and younger–starting point guards, even the appeal of playing close to home didn’t outweigh the likelihood of a similar role with either team as he had with Golden State.
“Something that I want to say is, a lot of times there is rhetoric, ‘Oh, this guy wants to stay close to home.’ My family is everything. My wife is here, my kids are back in L.A., and that’s where they will be during the season,” Paul revealed.
“And I love basketball so much that I could be close to home, but if I’m not playing, I’m not happy, seriously. And I love my family to death. When we saw this opportunity, even though it would put me away from my family, my family knows me better than anybody. And they know that I just want to play. I want to play more than anything, and that’s why I’m grateful for them and more so grateful to be here.”
Last season, the Spurs began with converted forward Jeremy Sochan as the team’s starting point guard for the first 33 games before shifting to a more traditional point guard in Tre Jones. Both players struggled in the role, and Jones, who ended up starting the most games for San Antonio at the position, averaged just 10 points per game. Kyle Lowry, who played for both the Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers last season, was the only starting point guard who averaged fewer points, at 8.1.
Paul will presumably be the starter ahead of Jones, and more court time would allow the former to approach some meaningful milestones. Paul enters the 2024-25 NBA season ranking third in league history in both assists (11,894) and steals (2,614). He needs just 198 assists to pass Jason Kidd for second-most all-time, while he’s only within 71 steals of also passing Kidd for second on that list. While the assists milestone seems a given as Paul had nearly 400 last year with limited playing time, he needs to be on the court to get the steals mark. If Paul replicates his steals total from last year in this upcoming season, he would finish one shy as he accumulated a career-low 70 steals with the Warriors.
“There’s probably no player in the league that everybody in the league talks about after the game like [Wembanyama],“ Paul said. ”Because everybody has to adjust stuff. Me and Harrison [Barnes] was on our flight yesterday, talking about how cool it’s going to be at this point in our careers to get a chance to appreciate him day in and day out. So, that definitely helped.”
