2024 NBA free agency: Chris Paul to join Spurs on 1-year, $11M deal after being waived by Warriors, per report

The San Antonio Spurs spent the first few months of Victor Wembanyama’s rookie season experimenting with Jeremy Sochan at point guard. It didn’t work, and some observers wondered if they might make a move to get a more traditional table-setter. In Year 1 of the Wemby era, they decided not to do that, choosing instead to simply put Tre Jones in the starting lineup in early January.

In Year 2 of the Wemby era, Chris Paul will throw lobs to the French sensation. Hours after being waived by the Golden State Warriors on Sunday, the 39-year-old future Hall of Famer agreed to sign with San Antonio, as first reported by Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes. Paul will join the team on a one-year deal worth upwards of $11 million, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Paul, per Haynes, wants to elevate Wembanyama’s game and show that he can still play at a high level. Entering his 20th season in the NBA, he should not be expected to create the same amount of space as he used to or stay in front of the league’s quickest guards defensively. During his one year with the Warriors, though, Paul shot 48% from midrange, per Cleaning The Glass, and made 42.3% of his catch-and-shoot 3s. He’s still a weapon, and he will make sure the Spurs are organized.

It’s not the exact same situation, but I can’t help but wonder if Paul was thinking about the year he spent with the Oklahoma City Thunder when he made this decision. He was five years younger then, and that Thunder team wasn’t quite as inexperienced (Steven Adams, Danilo Gallinari and Dennis Schroder all played significant roles), but, for one season, Paul gave everything he had to a team that was definitively not in win-now mode. His leadership helped Oklahoma City exceed expectations and become more than the sum of its parts. 

“OKC was unbelievable,” Paul said during his appearance on The Pivot Podcast last year. “I might not still be playing if not for that year I had there, ’cause I had that joy back.”

Paul fit in just fine in Golden State, but the team was under pressure to recapture its former…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2024-nba-free-agency-chris-paul-to-join-spurs-on-1-year-11m-deal-after-being-waived-by-warriors-per-report/

Author : James Herbert

Publish date : 2024-07-01 01:56:07

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.