There is a reason that Chris Paul has been referred to as the “Point God” throughout his career. Taken with the fourth pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, the 39-year-old Paul has accumulated countless accolades and historic feats during his time in the league. He is now in his 20th NBA season, and his first with the San Antonio Spurs.
Paul has certainly made life easier for his teammates on the offensive end, providing easy buckets for them due to his elite point guard skills. He has stacked up a whole lot of assists, and the 6-foot guard reached a career milestone in Friday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Chris Paul Hits Another Career Assists Milestone On Friday
Becomes Third To 12,000 Career Assists
On Friday, the Spurs fell to the Lakers by the score of 120-115. The Spurs now sit at 6-7 for the season. While the result wasn’t what San Antonio was hoping for, Paul displayed his floor general abilities. He finished with a double-double, scoring 11 points and dishing out 11 assists. Paul’s third assist of the evening gave him 12,000 for his career, a total that has only been reached by two others in John Stockton and Jason Kidd. Paul ended the night having 12,008 career assists.
Despite his advanced age, Paul is still stacking up dimes with the best of them. In his first 13 outings of 2024-25, he is averaging 8.8 assists per contest. That places him fourth in the league, only behind Nikola Jokic, Trae Young, and LeBron James. The 20-year veteran nearly has 4.5 times the amount of assists than turnovers this season, a mark that is actually better than his career assist-to-turnover ratio.
There have been five seasons that have seen Paul end the year leading in assists per game. Those are five of seven seasons in which Paul had double-digit assist averages. The 2005-06 Rookie of the Year has averaged 9.3 assists per outing over his 1,285 career regular season games. Paul has four games in his career of at least 20 assists, with his career-high of 21 came on November 6, 2007 as a member of the New Orleans Hornets.
Will Paul Surpass Kidd Or Stockton’s Total?
Barring a major injury, without question Paul will overtake Kidd for second place on the all-time assists leaderboard. Paul needs just 84 more assists to surpass Kidd’s career total of 12,091. At his current seasonal average of 8.8 dimes per night, it would take Paul just 10 more games to move into second place.
As great as Paul has been, there is next to no chance that he becomes the all-time assist leader over Stockton. Nearly 40 years old, Paul isn’t quite yet to 80 percent of Stockton’s career total of 15,806. It seems outlandish to believe that Paul will accumulate the 3,716 more he needs to become the all-time assists leader.
There’s certainly no shame in that though. Paul is all third all-time in steals, behind the same two names that are ahead of him in assists. Much like assists, there is a good chance Paul passes Kidd this season (needs 51 more). Stockton’s record seems safe as it does for assists (Paul would need 632 more to pass Stockton).
