Chris Paul REUNITES with the Clippers on 1-Year, $3.6M Deal

Chris Paul REUNITES with the Clippers on 1-Year, $3.6M Deal

[Music] We’ve got breaking news out of the NBA. Future Hall of Famer Chris Paul is signing a one-year, $3.6 million deal with the Clippers. That’s per multiple reports. It’ll be a reunion for CP3 and the Clippers where he played from 2011 to 2017 and is the franchise’s all-time assist. Paul spent last year with the Spurs and averaged just under nine points and seven and a half assists per game. He currently has the second most assists in NBA history, trailing only John Stockton. He will be entering his 21st NBA season and just turned 40 years old in May. But the ride is not over for Chris Paul. And we are not done talking about. We now bring in our NBA expert Sam Quinn. And Sam, if this is in fact the final year for Chris Paul playing in the NBA like we expected it might be, a return to the Clippers just seems fitting. Are you surprised at all that it was LA and the Clippers that he decided to play with? No. This had kind of been trending in that direction for quite some time. I think they were waiting to settle up with Bradley Beal first. You know, they wanted to make sure they knew what kind of role they were going to have for him, but he’s going to slot very nicely into that backup point guard role. They’re one of the deepest teams in the NBA. They might not even have minutes for Bogdan Bogdanovich anymore. So, I think this is a really nice situation for him and for the team. They have a lot of older players. That depth is going to be really, really helpful over the course of the 82 game season. And he said before free agency began, his priority was to be close to his family back in LA. His family has been in LA since he left the Rockets. He’s been all over the country playing for Phoenix, for Oklahoma City, you know, for San Antonio. I think this is a fitting way to end his career if that’s indeed how it happens. Goes back to the team where he probably had his best years. He gets to be near his family. It would have been fun if it would have been the Lakers, you know, him and LeBron finally linking up, but I don’t think that really made basketball sense given the way their roster was constructed. The Clippers could actually really use a backup point guard. So, I think this is a good fit all around. Yeah, six seasons for Paul with the Clippers. Five of those allars, five of them all NBA selection. of course all the lobity, all the fun times that we remember when he was with the Clippers. Now running it back again, what can we really expect to see with him from what he has left in the tank? Granted, he did play all 82 games last year with the Spurs. He started all 82 games for the Spurs, right? He wasn’t even just some bit player. It’s funny, players of that age, you sort of expect them to go ring chase, right? Go play five, eight minutes a game on a championship contender. Chris Paul wanted to play and I think that was a big part of his decision here. He’s going to be the primary backup point guard for the Clippers. You figure he’s going to play 15, 20 minutes a game. I think the Clippers, like a lot of the best teams in the NBA, most notably the Thunder, have realized that over an 82 game slug with the sport as intense it is as it is now, you want to be able to play 1011 guys. You want to be deep. You want to keep your guys fresh for the playoffs. So, I think he’s going to play around 20 minutes a game. I think he’s going to be very useful in that role. The Clippers have a little bit of everything now, right? They can go big, they can go small, they can play offense centric, they can play defensecentric. They can put whatever sort of lineup Chris Paul needs around him. I think they put him in a pretty good position here to go out as not just, you know, the guy deep on the bench on the winning team, but as a real contributor even into his 40s. So, what do you make of this Clippers roster right now as constructed? Because they have been busy this offseason. They have Brad Beal now. They have Brook Lopez. They also have John Collins. Uh so you see this team and what they’ve done. What type of noise can they make in the West? Right now I have them as a strong fourth in the West. Right. Last year they pushed Denver to seven. Denver pushes Oklahoma City to seven. That suggests that they’re pretty close, right? Maybe not as close to Oklahoma City, but they have a chance. And they’ve improved pretty substantially. The two big problems last year were backup front court and backup back court, right? They now they get Chris Paul and Bradley Beal to address the offense when James Harden goes to the bench. They get Brook Lopez and John Collins really fortify the front court. They have everything right now, right? They’re an older team. You figure they’re going to lose some games due to injury, but they won 50 with Kawhai missing like half the year last year. So, I don’t know if they’re quite as good as the Thunder, the Nuggets, or the Rockets, but I think they’re within they’re within the margin of error where they could push those teams in a series. And if they stay healthy, I think they could be near the top of the Western Conference in the regular season. Yeah, here we are in July and I’m already looking forward to October because of all the movement we have seen in this off seasonason that likely is not even done yet. Sam Quinn, thank you so much as we talk about Chris Paul and his reunion with the Clippers headed over to LA. And there you’ll find the Clippers sitting at 17 to1 for the odds to win the NBA title. And that’s behind teams in the West, which is the Thunder, Rockets, and Nuggets. So maybe Sam spot on saying he has them as fourth best in the West. Chris Paul, back to LA.

Sam Quinn joins CBS Sports HQ to break down the news on future Hall of Famer Chris Paul’s return to the Clippers.

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