Chris Paul Speaks on Weird Season and Early Retirement

The end of Chris Paul’s career didn’t end as many expected. When he signed a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Clippers before this season, people were expecting the ideal swan song. Paul got to play in 16 games for the Clippers before everything fell apart. 

The Clippers asked Paul to step away from the team and later traded him to the Toronto Raptors. Paul then decided to retire. He was recently asked during a live show 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony about his premature retirement.   

"How did I know this was the right time? Well, when all that stuff happened, I trained, workout—obviously I was in Atlanta—came home. I had a whole bunch of my family in Atlanta for that game. My brother happened to be there, a few of my homies. So then we flew back and I was working out and training and I talked to a few of my friends and I was like, ‘Man, I’m going to give myself a deadline. You know, if I’m not on a team by a certain point, then All-Star, you know, I’ll be done with it…I can only—I have to—I had to laugh in that situation because for so long I sort of let everybody just sort of tell my story, you know, and you try to stay above everything and let people say this, say that in all these different situations. And for the most part, I don’t usually comment on it, you know what I mean? But at a certain point, you can’t let people play in your face. They can’t play with your name and don’t disrespect that. So, I wasn’t cool about none of it. About none of it. But luckily, I got a support system, a family, and all that stuff like that."

It seems like Paul still has a sour taste in his mouth about how things went down with the Clippers. He even got visually emotional talking about how it all ended. 

It’s definitely sad to see Paul not get to end his career on his own terms. He still will be remembered as one of the greatest point guards ever and he can rest easy knowing that.