{"id":132718,"date":"2025-04-04T12:49:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T16:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=132718"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:52:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T16:52:31","slug":"chris-paul-sends-message-about-retirement-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/04\/chris-paul-sends-message-about-retirement-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Paul Sends Message About Retirement Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/30\/spurs-predicted-to-steal-guerschon-yabusele-from-the-76ers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">San Antonio Spurs<\/a> point guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/paulch01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-04_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Paul<\/a> is finishing up his 20th season in the NBA. The North Carolina native still provides value on and off the court, but it is clear that his best is behind him. Paul will turn 40 years old in May and is set to hit unrestricted free agency this year. Naturally, many are wondering about the outlook of Paul&#8217;s playing future. Recently, Paul spoke <a href=\"https:\/\/andscape.com\/features\/my-love-for-the-game-is-even-higher-now-chris-paul-set-to-evaluate-his-nba-future\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to Andscape&#8217;s Marc J. Spears<\/a> and provided some clarity.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI\u2019ll be 40 in May. So, yeah man, I\u2019m going to keep playing, I think,\u201d Paul told Andscape recently. \u201cAt the end of every season, I evaluate everything. Evaluate playing. Evaluate how my body feels. But the more years that go by, it\u2019s more conversations with my family, with my kids. They have a lot of say so. They got a lot of input. \u201cObviously, I got a lot of homies, friends that have retired or whatnot. And they are always like, \u2018Man, play as long as you possibly can. Play as long as you possibly can.\u2019 And I appreciate that. But I also, I just always want to talk to my kids about it because that\u2019s 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\u2019s in this knows the sacrifice could goes longer. I said this summer I will evaluate it and talk to my family about it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Chris Paul Sends Message About Retirement Plans<\/h2>\n<h3>San Antonio Spurs &#8216;Would Love&#8217; to Have Chris Paul Back?<\/h3>\n<p>If Paul decides to resume his playing career, it will be interesting to see what team he ends up with. Paul has played for six teams in the last nine years and could land elsewhere next season. However, according to NBA insider Brian Windhorst, the Spurs may have interest in bringing Paul back.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;I think he could go coach in the league next year &#8230; but knowing Chris Paul, he&#8217;s gonna want to be out on that court.&#8221; \ud83d\ude24 <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WindhorstESPN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WindhorstESPN<\/a> on if Chris Paul will return for his 21st NBA season \ud83d\udc40 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LuhvYq4IeQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/LuhvYq4IeQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNNBA\/status\/1907880332533096644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s got all the options on the table,\u201d Windhorst said. \u201cI think the Spurs would love to have him back, I think he could go sign with another team, I think he could go coach in the league, I think he could be in the studio with us if he wanted to be. But knowing Chris Paul, he\u2019s gonna want to be on the court because he can still make an impact. That\u2019s where the most money is still.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>Paul is far from his peak. However, he still provides value. The Spurs are a candidate to make the playoffs next season. However, they are unlikely to be legitimate title contenders. Regardless, re-signing Paul could be a good decision for the team. Either way, his status will be worth monitoring the rest of the way.<\/p>\n<p>Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>San Antonio Spurs point guard Chris Paul is finishing up his 20th season in the NBA. The North Carolina native still provides value on and off the court, but it is clear that his best is behind him. Paul will turn 40 years old in May and is set to hit unrestricted free agency this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":108856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,62,3,34],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-132718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-spurs","tag-chris-paul"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132718"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132725,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132718\/revisions\/132725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}