Chris Paul was a competitor, a genius and unapologetically himself until the very end

Chris Paul's last year in the NBA wasn't supposed to be like this. The surefire Hall of Famer signed with the Clippers, the team he helped pull out of obscurity, for a retirement tour on a team with high playoff expectations. He only made it through 16 games before they decided they were better off without him. Last week, they traded him to the Raptors, who waived him without playing him a single minute.

Paul's not a quitter, but he saw the writing on the wall. In a 525-word Instagram statement, he announced that he was stepping away from the game rather than pursuing another contract to finish out the year.

The Point God will go down as one of the smartest players in the history of the game. His genius manifested itself in a number of ways. He figured out early that grifting for fouls was one of the most efficient forms of offense. If his team was in the bonus, you could bet your net worth that he was going to attempt a rip-through move to get to the free throw line. He's the only guy in the league that would dare try one 90 feet away from the basket and with 19 seconds left on the shot clock. It worked, and he got two free throws out of it. 

Paul's brain was always on. He once won a game in 2019 by forcing referees to enforce an obscure delay-of-game rule with 1.1 seconds left, after Jordan Bell checked in with his jersey untucked. The ensuing technical foul free throw helped his Thunder team force an improbable overtime and win that game.

Another time, during his year with the Spurs, he knocked the ball away from 7-foot-3 center Zach Edey and had a chance to grab it to force a jump ball. Instead, he frantically motioned to teammate Victor Wembanyama to grab it, pulling Wemby's hand down to the ball and forcing the whistle.

Most recently, he and Wembanyama gamed the skills competition at All-Star Weekend, recording the best time but getting disqualified in the process for intentionally missing their shots. It was such a disaster that the league replaced the event with the Shooting Stars contest this year.

Paul didn't need those tricks to win. He was an unbelievably talented player who could beat players based purely on talent, too. You don't win Rookie of the Year, make 12 All-Star games, and finish top 10 in MVP voting 10 times without being one of the best point guards of all time.

Paul once explained to me why he steals opponents' play calls for a story that I wrote back in 2023. "It ain't much of an advantage," he explained. "But in a game where we talk about every point matters, every possession matters, you do what you gotta do."

To Paul, the idea of not stealing signs didn't even register as a possibility. You always exploited the advantage, no matter how small. That led him to win a lot, but it also gave him the reputation of being difficult to deal with. Some of his teammates didn't love his approach, while others appreciated the tough love.

MORE: Where does Chris Paul rank on all-time PG scoring list?

"He's always trying to bring the best out of everyone. He knows the game. Always was one of the guys who was trying to share, night in and night out being a vocal presence," his former Rockets teammate Clint Capela told me two weeks ago.  

Other times, players chafed at Paul's leadership initially but came around years later.

Nobody played more games with Paul than DeAndre Jordan. He told me bluntly about Paul's personality in an interview a month ago. 

"He's an asshole on the floor, and that's what makes him so great," Jordan said. "That's what separates him from other players. There's no friends on the floor, which I respect. We elbow each other on the floor and after that, we're going to dinner together after the game."

At the time that the two played together, Jordan was a young player who didn't always want to hear Paul's lessons. Now, he passes those same lessons on to his younger Pelicans teammates. It took him a long time to realize how important Paul's words were. 

"[It was] little sh—. Angles. The way you want the screen. Small things that you may think are irritating."

Jordan realizes that Paul was simply trying to get him to become a better player. And it worked. 

"I look at a guy like Chris, a guy like rest in peace Kobe, who did that and got the best of his teammates. Draymond Green, Kevin Garnett. It may be looked at as a negative thing but I like that. They hold me accountable. They're going to hold themselves to an even higher standard, so I respect the hell out of it."

"To me, nobody can say anything bad about Chris. He helped me become the prime player that I was in my career. I respect the hell out of him. He's a Hall of Famer." 

"I know I'm a lot to deal with on the court," Paul said, his voice cracking as he held back tears. "But I just love to hoop." 

Paul didn't have the storybook ending that he had hoped for. He never did get back to an NBA Finals after losing with the Suns in 2021. And his legacy will be polarizing, with some recognizing how brilliant he was while others chafe at his tactics. But the goal was always the goal. He competed for 21 years, until he had absolutely nothing left to give.