Chris Paul’s re-introduction to Los Angeles ended up being more emotional than he expected, with hundreds of Clippers fans chanting “C-P-3.”It’s kind of wild, kind of crazy,” Paul said of the experience. “Still kind of speechless.”
Paul has returned to the Clippers, where he played for six seasons, leading the “Lob City” team alongside Blake Griffin, which was a contender in the West but was undone by a painful series of injuries and playoff collapses. Those were the peak CP3 years — in his first five years with the Clippers he never finished lower than seventh in MVP voting — and he averaged 18.8 points and 9.8 assists a game with the team.
He’s not returning because of nostalgia, however. He said it was a “no brainer” to Los Angeles because this is where his family lives.
“This is one of those things that kind of manifested for a long time, sort of tried to speak it into existence, but you just never know if it’s really gonna happen,” Paul said of his return. “Because I love to hoop. I love to play this game, but I love my family more than any of it…
“I wanted to get back and play here by any means necessary.”
He wanted to return enough that he told ESPN’s Malika Andrews he could play a couple more seasons, despite the general expectation this season will be his last.
Paul’s role will be different with the Clippers than it was a season ago in San Antonio, where he started all 82 games. With the Clippers, Paul will come off the bench as part of a beefed-up second unit — the Clippers are older but have 11 solid rotation players Tyronn Lue can lean on.
Lue was one of the reasons CP3 wanted to return.
“I’m excited to play for T. Lue, right?” Paul said of the Clippers’ coach. “See, people probably don’t remember, T. Lue was my assistant coach when I was here with the Clippers, and we’ve stayed close over the years…
“There’s a lot of great coaches in this league, but T. Lue is one of the coaches that I think teams, like you have to prepare for him too. It’s weird being on other teams playing against the Clippers, because a lot of times you’re just scouting, how do we stop Kawhi? How do we stop this? But just know a lot of teams respect T. Lue and his ability.”
Paul, Lue and these Clippers are poised to win a lot of games this season — they won 50 a year ago and got better this offseason. That winning is something Paul wanted to be a part of, too.
But mostly, the return was about his family, and they were on hand for his emotional day on Monday, too.