The biggest questions of the San Antonio Spurs’ offseason will be when will superstar Victor Wembanyama be healthy enough to play again and whether Hall of Fame head coach Gregg Popovich will coach again. Overlooked in the heaviness of those two Spurs’ futures is whether future Hall of Fame guard Chris Paul will be retiring or playing into his 40s.
“I’ll be 40 in May. So, yeah man, I’m going to keep playing, I think,” Paul told Andscape recently. “At the end of every season, I evaluate everything. Evaluate playing. Evaluate how my body feels. But the more years that go by, it’s more conversations with my family, with my kids. They have a lot of say so. They got a lot of input.
“Obviously, I got a lot of homies, friends that have retired or whatnot. And they are always like, ‘Man, play as long as you possibly can. Play as long as you possibly can.’ And I appreciate that. But I also, I just always want to talk to my kids about it because that’s the most important job that I have. I love to play. I definitely love my kids and my family more than I like to play. Anybody who’s in this knows the sacrifice could goes longer. I said this summer I will evaluate it and talk to my family about it.”
Paul was selected by the New Orleans Hornets with the fourth overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft out of Wake Forest. The 20-year NBA veteran is destined for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a 12-time All-Star, 11-time All-NBA selection, nine-time NBA All-Defensive Team selection and a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team. These feats are even more remarkable considering Paul is only 6-foot, 175 pounds.
With 1,348 career regular-season games played, Paul will turn 40 years old on May 6. He is the second-oldest player in the NBA only to Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (40). Paul entered Friday averaging a career-low 8.8 points and 7.6 assists in 28 minutes per game while starting all 76 contests. The expectation is that rookie guard Stephon Castle will be moving into the starting lineup for the Spurs next season.
Paul is now old enough that several players who played in his AAU program and basketball camp are in the NBA, including Spurs teammates Harrison Barnes and De’Aaron Fox.
“I’m proud. Grateful. I don’t think about it too much,” Paul said about his career. “I always tell these guys on my team, ‘I couldn’t imagine being done at 25. I couldn’t imagine being done at 35.’ I still can’t even imagine at some point being done. I’ve been in the league half of my life …
“My love for the game is even higher now. My son hoops. My daughter hoops. And I think the most challenging thing now is I love giving back to teammates, the team, giving them the little nuances that I know. I want to give some of that knowledge to my kids, too. I’m just figuring it out, seeing what that looks like.”
Paul’s permanent home is in Los Angeles where his wife, Jada and teenage children Chris Paul II and Camryn live. Playing with the Los Angeles Clippers from 2012-17 helped him be close to his family. But since being traded from the Clippers in 2017, he has played for the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors in San Francisco and now San Antonio.
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With each passing day, Paul says he thinks about the days he is missing from his wife and children’s lives. Even when Paul was in Phoenix or San Francisco, he was able to fly home easily in roughly an hour when time permitted. That’s much tougher to do from San Antonio.
“It’s tough, but things could be a lot worse,” Paul said. “I’m still able to play. Just like any parent, I definitely miss my kids and my wife.”
Whether Paul retires or not, his one-year, $10.6 million contract with the Spurs ends at the end of this season. Paul, known for his high basketball IQ and straightforward style of communication, said he has been able to “teach what he can, but not be overwhelming” during his time in San Antonio.
Fox and Spurs general manager Brian Wright both said Paul has made a major impact on the Spurs in a short time.
“It’s been dope just being able to be around him,” Fox said. “We want to start watching film together and then just being able to work out with him a little bit in the off season. What he’s done at 6-foot for 20 years, I feel like people don’t give him the credit that he deserves. He’s been All-Defensive about nine or 10 times or something like that. Doing it at that height, he knows something. Obviously, he’s not as quick as he once was or athletic as he once was, but the last five to seven years, he’s still been effective when he’s on the court. So just being able to pick his brain and being able to work out with him and getting in the gym with him can add to what I feel like I don’t have.”
Said Wright to Andscape: “He’s a teacher at heart. People just see when he’s on the court, but there’s so much more to what he teaches. Life routine, big picture, business brand, all of it. He’s professional. He made it his home and jumped right in.
“We’ve had a lot of things happen this year and he’s never wavered. He’s been the same person. He’s been incredible to have him around.”
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The two biggest draws in terms of playing for the Spurs for Paul was suiting up for Popovich and playing with perhaps the NBA’s biggest young star in Wembanyama. On Feb. 20, however, the Spurs announced that Wembanyama would miss the rest of this season due to a blood clot in his right shoulder. Popovich also suffered a mild stroke on Nov. 2, 2024, and didn’t return to the sidelines. Disappointing matters further, Paul will not be playing in the postseason as the Spurs will miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season.
Unexpected hurdles have been a part of Paul’s NBA career. He began it playing home games in Oklahoma City as the New Orleans Hornets were displaced due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He had a trade vetoed by the NBA that would have sent him from the Hornets to the Lakers to play with Kobe Bryant in 2011. Paul played for the Clippers when its then-owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life for racist comments in 2014. He was also president of the NBA Players Association during the coronavirus pandemic that caused the NBA Bubble in 2020. He’s suffered poor timing with injuries in the playoffs with the Clippers and Rockets. Now, this bad luck with the Spurs.
“Obviously, it’s not ideal,” Paul said about the Spurs’ challenging season. “All of it’s something that’s obviously wouldn’t have been foreseen. But you deal with it. And we’ve all just been trying to step up and fill the void where we can. Honestly for me, I’ve been in so many different situations throughout my career. Whether it’s injuries, whether it’s different things, perspective is everything. The things that happened with Pop and Vic are bigger than the game. These ain’t like you roll your ankle, break a bone or something like that.
“It’s extremely tough. I’ve played against Pop for a number of years. It’s a huge reason why I came here. And so was Vic — two of the main reasons why I came here. But getting to know him the way that I have trumps any other thing that’s going on. I’m grateful for even the opportunity for the time that we did get to play together.”
Paul said he talks regularly with former NBA players Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Rudy Gay about life after basketball. Paul has enjoyed seeing Anthony connect on the basketball court with his son, Kiyan, a high school basketball star who is following his father to Syracuse. Paul talks regularly to former Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star Matt Kemp, who played his last game on 2020. Paul is also mentored by Disney CEO Bob Iger.
While Paul is listening to his close friends about retirement, he notes that he is keener to the needs of his family. Along with being with his family more, in retirement Paul could also be an NBA television analyst, or spend more time as an ad pitchman, philanthropist, filmmaker and AAU program mentor.
“I was with Melo [Anthony] when he found out he was a finalist [for the Hall of Fame],” Paul said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long [since he retired]. I was talking to my homies in my group chat about Kiyan. That is the thing I am so grateful for. I got the AAU program and all the guys in my league.
“I’m so connected to the game. Even when I’m done playing, I will miss it more than anything.”
While the Spurs’ season finale against the Toronto Raptors on April 13 isn’t a headliner on paper, it’s possible that it could be Paul’s last NBA game. It’s also possible that CP3 will continue on as a point guard with two decades worth of experience.
“My body feels great, to tell you the truth,” Paul, who is vegan, said. “There is a lot that goes into it on a daily basis. Eating right, training, stretching. Knock on wood, but just being in the lineup every night for the team right now has been really cool. I have routines and things like that, but I definitely have been able to learn things along the way.
“I don’t think about [legacy] too much. The biggest thing I just try to bring is competitiveness. It ain’t always liked, and I ain’t never really cared. But for me in this NBA as small guard to play as long as I’ve been able to play, you can’t be out there all buddy-buddy. It’s the intensity that I play with and I ain’t going to change it.”
