{"id":150013,"date":"2025-07-13T06:30:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=150013"},"modified":"2025-07-13T06:59:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T10:59:40","slug":"chris-paul-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/13\/chris-paul-hornets\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets \u2018Rebuffed\u2019 In Attempt To Bring Home Future Hall of Famer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Paul<\/a> is certainly the most-accomplished free agent that remains unsigned this offseason. Now 40 years old, he has stated that he would like to play in the 2025-26 season, and that it would likely be his last. Reports have surfaced that he wants to play near his home in Los Angeles<\/a>. While he\u2019d like to play near his current home, apparently he has no interest of playing near his first-ever home. The Charlotte Hornets tried to bring Chris Paul in, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

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Apr 9, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; San Antonio Spurs guard Chris Paul (3) dribbles against Golden State Warriors forward Kevon Looney (5) in the fourth quarter at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hornets \u2018Rebuffed\u2019 In Attempt To Bring Home Future Hall of Famer<\/h2>\n

Chris Paul Not Interested In Hornets<\/h3>\n

Paul was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended West Forsyth High School in Clemmons, North Carolina. Then, he returned to Winston-Salem to attend and play for Wake Forest, where he spent two years prior to his two-decade NBA career beginning. Apparently, Paul is not interested in ending his career where the first few chapters of his life occurred in the state of North Carolina.<\/p>\n

According to Marc Stein, the Hornets tried speaking with him, but were turned away. On his Substack, Stein wrote<\/a>,<\/p>\n

League sources say that both the Suns and the Clippers continue to weigh the prospect of reuniting with Chris Paul. Yet it remains unclear what happens if a deal with neither of those previous employers materializes for the 40-year-old. Paul has already rebuffed an approach from his home-state Charlotte Hornets earlier in free agency and likewise has interest from Milwaukee but has shown little inclination to this point to consider overtures from Eastern Conference teams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now Paul previously played for a team known as the Hornets, but they weren\u2019t based in Charlotte. He was drafted by, and played his first six years with the New Orleans Hornets.<\/p>\n

Charlotte has seemingly moved on since not receiving interest from the \u2018Point God\u2019. They have re-signed Tre Mann<\/a> and also signed Spencer Dinwiddie<\/a> in free agency. Stein also mentions the Milwaukee Bucks, who have brought back Kevin Porter Jr.<\/a> and reportedly will be adding Cole Anthony<\/a> once he clears waivers after he was bought out by the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two teams that Paul previously played for remain the teams that seem the favorites to land the 12-time All-Star.<\/p>\n

Suns and Clippers Remain Favorites<\/h3>\n

With reports that Paul wants to play close to his LA home, the Clippers and Suns have been talked about as his two most-likely suitors. Of course, those are two teams where Paul left quite a mark.<\/p>\n

The six-foot point guard played six seasons with the Clippers spanning from 2011-12 until 2016-17. Paul finished in the top-seven in MVP voting each of his first five years with the club. It was a fun time for their fans as it was the \u2018Lob City\u2019 era also featuring Blake Griffin<\/a> and DeAndre Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Phoenix was Paul\u2019s NBA home for three seasons, as he played for them from 2020-21 until 2022-23. His first year with the team saw Paul reach the NBA Finals for the first time. The Suns went up 2-0 against the Bucks before Milwaukee won the ensuing four contests.<\/p>\n

The Clippers offer a better opportunity for Paul to potentially win his first championship, while there is a greater likelihood that he could start for the Suns. He is coming off a season where he started all 82 games for the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Sam Sharpe-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Paul is certainly the most-accomplished free agent that remains unsigned this offseason. Now 40 years old, he has stated that he would like to play in the 2025-26 season, and that it would likely be his last. Reports have surfaced that he wants to play near his home in Los Angeles. While he\u2019d like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":150038,"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":[1608,7,62,3],"tags":[50219,229,3011],"class_list":["post-150013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-nba","category-news","tag-2025-nba-free-agents","tag-chris-paul","tag-marc-stein"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150013","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\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150013"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150040,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150013\/revisions\/150040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}