HE CONCEDES DURING a rare, unguarded moment that he envisioned his arrival in Houston in 2017 as his final, triumphant pièce de résistance. Chris Paul was acquired, after all, by then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who so obsessively pursued Paul that he manufactured a bobblehead with the point guard and his son, young Chris II, nodding side by side in an attempt to lure him four years earlier as a free agent. After he finally became a Rocket, Paul assumed the relationship would germinate deep roots.
"I moved about 15 people there with me," Paul says.
His wife, his kids, and his brother and wife and their kids. Cousins. The nanny, the trainer, the masseuse, security people, the chef. Team Paul settled in for the long haul in Houston, perhaps, even, for that elusive trip to the NBA Finals, which none of them ever talked about, even though it hung in the air like the humidity at a sticky Texas barbecue.
But Paul's tenure with the Rockets was quick, ruthless. The tally was two seasons of searing laments: a ravaged Paul hamstring away from a Finals berth in Year 1, and an eventually fractured relationship with James Harden in Year 2.
After another playoff series loss to the Golden State Warriors in 2019, Morey shared with Paul that there was a deal brewing with the rebuilding Oklahoma City Thunder. Paul expressed his disappointment and preference to play for a contender.
Morey, pressured to land Russell Westbrook by ownership and a star in Harden who had grown tired of Paul's constant chirping, made the deal. Team Paul packed up and left, most of them back to Los Angeles, except Paul himself, who stuffed some clothes in a duffel and started looking for an apartment in Oklahoma City.
When Paul's friend and former teammate Matt Barnes heard about the trade, he thought, "Damn, that's a cold way for this to end."
Paul resisted the urge to express his feelings of betrayal and shock in the immediate aftermath of his unceremonious departure from Houston.
"There ain't no 'woe is me' here," Paul says. "No one wants to hear it."
Paul's cerebral approach to the game has always been above reproach; the rub has been an inflexibility that occasionally rankled coaches and teammates, and made him, as Barnes says, "an acquired taste."
"I loved playing with Chris," says Barnes, who played on those LA Clippers teams from 2012 to 2015, "but you've got to have a strong stomach."
Just 21 months after the Rockets gave up on him, Paul is at the helm of a Phoenix Suns team that sits just one game behind the Utah Jazz for the best record in the NBA. Their leading scorer is 24-year-old All-Star Devin Booker, and their budding young big man Deandre Ayton continues his ascent. Paul's gravitas has transformed this young roster into a disciplined, potent operation that has posted the best road record (20-8) in the NBA, with its the latest victory ending a New York Knicks nine-game winning streak.
With Paul running the show, Phoenix ranks seventh in offensive efficiency, as opposed to 12th last season. They have jumped from 17th to fifth in defensive efficiency and are poised to eradicate a decadelong playoff drought.
"Chris' fingerprints are all over that team," says his former Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni.
Suns coach Monty Williams and Paul spent one season together with the New Orleans Hornets in 2010-11. Paul was a young, headstrong 25-year-old star on the rise, and Williams was a young, headstrong 38-year-old coach on the rise. Both of them had firm ideas on how the team should be run, philosophies that often collided.
They went their separate ways in 2011 with a healthy measure of mutual respect, and Williams often mused about another partnership with Paul. Now Williams has it. The two men sat down when the now-35-year-old point guard arrived in Arizona and discussed their shared compulsion to be in control.
"Instead of being right," Williams, now 49, said to Paul, "let's try being effective."
AT FIRST GLANCE, being jettisoned from the contending Rockets to the seemingly lottery-bound Thunder felt like the worst day of a long, proud career. It was July 2019. And the 34-year-old Paul, who had battled injuries and played just 58 games for the Rockets in his final season, didn't have to strain to hear the whispers regarding his demise: He was too old, too slow. His best days behind him.
"I talked to Chris a few days after the trade," says Speedy Claxton, the veteran Paul shadowed as a rookie. "He told me, 'Speedy, everyone thinks I'm done. But I feel the best I've ever felt. I'm going to show them. I'm going to show everyone.'"
It was more than just an individual pursuit for the aging superstar. It was the catalyst that ignited the Chris Paul reclamation project. During that pivotal season with Oklahoma City, league general managers were looking for two things: Would Paul be willing to defer to the young talent, and could he re-inject some spring in his step?
"I had my doubts," says one GM, "but he did both."
Normally, when a player is traded, he fields an immediate call from the team that acquired him. Paul didn't hear from Thunder boss Sam Presti right away, but he understood there was a chance he would never even set foot in OKC, especially since there were ongoing talks of rerouting him to the Miami Heat. One day went by. Then two. Finally, after three days, Paul called his agent and said, "Give me Presti's number. I've got new teammates to meet, and I need to call them."
His conversation with Presti was productive, sources say. The agreement was simple: As long as Paul established himself as a trusty veteran presence, willing to assist the development of young talent such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Darius Bazley and Luguentz Dort, Presti would move him at season's end, closer to his West Coast family and a winning situation.
"Like anyone," Presti says, "it took time for Chris to process the trade. It came abruptly, and it wasn't the perfect scenario for him. But once he came to grips with it, he put both feet in."
With Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander and veteran Dennis Schroder on the roster, there were three different point guards vying for time, so Paul willingly played off the ball for nearly half of his minutes. The OKC training staff presented him with four different, detailed in-season plans. One of them included absolving him of playing back-to-backs. "Forget that one," Paul informed them. "I'm not sitting out that many games."
They constructed a template that enabled him to compete in meaningful stretches; but if the game was out of reach, they would not waste his minutes on the back end. Paul was rejuvenated after shifting to a plant-based diet months earlier to refine his health and stamina, and he abhorred any kind of restrictions -- but he reluctantly agreed.
He and Gilgeous-Alexander became inseparable, but Paul also made a point to establish a connection with long time veteran Steven Adams. "Out of respect," Paul says. "It was his team." He planned team dinners and bought the guys custom-tailored suits.
Gilgeous-Alexander was a regular at Paul's place, watching lots of NBA games. Each was a teaching moment: how to handle the clock, when to be assertive, when to let the flow of the game dictate your actions.
"It's the little things that some guys miss," Gilgeous-Alexander says. "How to get to a certain spot one step ahead of your opponent, how to draw a foul late in the game. Chris does all of that in his sleep.
"He could easily never watch another game and be fine because of the knowledge he has. But he loves it too much to stop."
The "rebuilding" Thunder suddenly stopped turning the ball over in critical situations. They no longer lost every close game. Paul, who hadn't appeared on an All-NBA team since 2015-16, was rewarded with a second-team selection. He led the league in clutch points (150) and clutch minutes (168), and he shot 52.2% from the floor in clutch situations.
That doesn't mean he completely shed his near-maniacal pursuit of what he perceives to be game-theory optimal. During the final seconds of a tight game against Minnesota, he noticed then-Timberwolves center Jordan Bell checking in with his jersey hanging loosely over his shorts. He vociferously badgered the referees to make a call that everyone knows is rarely enforced. Oklahoma City won that game in overtime, but two nights later, in Portland, Paul was whistled for two delay of game penalties of his own, including one for not removing his warm-up in a timely fashion before checking in. "He's trying to make a f---ing point," Paul was overheard shouting at the official. "You want to be on SportsCenter tonight. Good for you!"
Paul has exhibited little patience for those who don't pay attention to the details that he thinks separate winning from losing and has no qualms about expressing his displeasure. His final days on a dysfunctional Clippers team, when he and Blake Griffin appeared to reside on separate continents, added to the narrative of Paul's "difficult" demeanor.
"I've played with a bunch of great players, and they all lead in different ways," says former Hornets teammate Antonio Daniels. "Chris Paul always led with his mouth. What a lot of guys didn't like -- and I absolutely loved -- was he held guys accountable when they messed up."
Paul realizes people think he's a know-it-all, a pain in the posterior who holds onto something with a vise grip until the dissenting party acquiesces.
"But I've put in the time to educate myself on everything about his game," he says. "I like to talk about things and try and find a solution. I don't think I'm always right, but I'm pretty good at knowing what's going on."
EXACTLY SIXTEEN MONTHS after bringing him to Oklahoma City, Presti worked with Paul on a trade to Phoenix, where Paul would join a foundering, dysfunctional organization -- but one with tantalizing young players and a perfect eight-game bubble run during the NBA's stint last summer in Orlando, Florida.
Deandre Ayton remembers his first day with Paul, when he says he experienced what he terms "the CP mentality." It started with Paul stopping the team midstride just as a designated play was about to go in motion. "Here's why what you're doing is no good," Paul said, grabbing Ayton, a towering 7-footer, by the shirt. "You need to be here, not there. I just told you that before. That angle isn't effective. It is incorrect."
Asked which time Paul chewed him out the worst, Ayton chortles, "Well, if you don't catch one of his passes, you are going to hear about it. Honestly, there's been so many times he's gotten on me, I'm not even sure I can choose one."
Paul says Ayton reminds him of a young DeAndre Jordan, his former Clippers teammate, with whom Paul still speaks regularly. Paul coached against Ayton in the 2016 Peach Jam AAU tournament, and the teenager left an indelible impression.
"He's a fun-loving kid, the life of the locker room, just like the other DeAndre," Paul says. "Seeing how he's progressed has been really dope to watch."
But that doesn't mean Paul plans to stop riding him. Ayton is just 22 and has trouble staying on point. He suffers bouts of inconsistency. And those angles, they are a constant source of conversation between the two players.
Suns general manager James Jones has known Paul for more than a decade, and Jones knew exactly what he was getting when he acquired him.
"I often struggle with the concept of being too 'tough' on guys," Jones says. "If 'tough' constitutes telling your teammate they messed up because they didn't run the play properly, I don't really see that as a problem.
"Now you learn, with feedback, that the best way to approach that can be through conversations that are sometimes uncomfortable. It can be as simple as, 'Chris, I hear what you are saying, but don't talk to me like that. If you say it to me this way, it will resonate better with me.'"
Barnes concurs that the delivery -- not the message -- was often the issue. He says Paul's withering criticism during his years with the Clippers occasionally caused younger players to go "into a shell."
"Even with the vets," Barnes says. "Chris would get on Blake or DeAndre about something, and they'd roll their eyes. So I'd go over to them and say, 'I think this is what Chris is trying to tell you.'"
Suns personnel point to a little thing that suggests Paul has evolved from a pestering perfectionist to a sage veteran, sharing the lessons he has learned over the past 16 seasons. When Ayton starts wearing down in the fourth quarter, instead of haranguing him to pick up his play, Paul tends to bellow, "Hey, Dre, you're not tired!"
Ayton, for his part, says he doesn't need a kinder, gentler Paul. "I needed a guy just like him to push me, to get the best out of me," he says. He rattles off the benefits of Paul's mentorship, from specific intel on tendencies of bigs and how to exploit them, to mentally preparing to perform on a stage that Ayton has never been on.
"People have this perception that when you get on somebody, that's all there is to the relationship," Paul says. "They never see the private conversation afterwards in the locker room or the encouraging texts later that night."
As Ayton explains it, "Chris is always talking to me. We have a bunch of alphas on this team. It's intense, and it becomes contagious."
Ayton says Paul's directness has emboldened him to dish it out in return when warranted. If a high pick-and-roll goes haywire, the young center will implore Paul, "C'mon, man, throw that lob higher!" Communication is Paul's calling card, so if he doesn't forecast a screen, Ayton will let him know about that too.
In a recent Suns game that came down to the final seconds, Paul admonished the team in the huddle during a timeout. "You have got to close out your guy!" he scolded. Ayton promptly chimed in, "Yeah, CP, that's right. But that starts with you."
A younger Paul might have felt the need to retort. This one simply nodded and took the floor.
Asked if he has softened in his old age, Paul responds, "Absolutely." But, within seconds, he walks it back.
"I don't know," Paul says. "I'm still me. I expect a lot."
THROUGH THE SUNS' first 16 games this season -- during which they went 8-8 -- the partnership between Devin Booker and Paul couldn't have looked bleaker. The numbers were ugly.
The team's net efficiency with both on the court was minus-5.2, with a ghastly defensive rating of 115. And yet with Booker on the floor alone, the team's efficiency swelled to plus-17.6.
Paul called Booker before he went to Phoenix to assure him -- just as Paul had done with Gilgeous-Alexander -- that his intent was to feature Booker in the offense. But it became apparent they both needed to drill down and become more specific in how they could help each other.
"You know how they say marriage is like two porcupines figuring out how to stay warm together?" says Williams. "Chris and Devin have figured out how to remove the quills."
That included Paul hunting for more opportunities to find Booker on pindowns and Booker communicating better on defensive pick-and-roll situations. It meant Paul studying Booker's sweet shooting motion and pinpointing precisely where and when he should pass him the ball.
Since Jan. 28, per ESPN Stats & Information, the Suns' fourth-quarter offensive efficiency with both Paul and Booker on the floor is 125.0 points per 100 possessions, 6.6 points better than any other team. Phoenix is also 16-4 in clutch games.
Houston has dissolved into a vague, disappointing distant memory.
Harden blasted his way out in a tsunami of ill will and settled with the Brooklyn Nets. Westbrook is on the Washington Wizards. Morey is with the Philadelphia 76ers. And the Rockets are dead last in the Western Conference with a league-worst 15 wins.
"Their loss," says Paul, who, with just 208 more points, will become the first player in NBA history to notch 20,000 career points and 10,000 assists.
Whether Phoenix will be the last team for such a remarkable career remains to be seen. Paul is closer to his family but still aches to be with them full time. He enjoys this young Suns squad and will not apologize for challenging teammates to be better. Ayton claims Paul is their lifeblood, their anchor.
"Honestly?" Ayton says. "I'm honored to have Chris Paul yell at me."