Chris Paul returns to Clippers, Warriors should remind him why he left

CP3’s back in L.A. chasing closure, but the Dub Nation would love to see their rival-turned-teammate-turned-opponent get served by the Warriors again.

I just wrote a piece about how Damian Lillard’s return to the Portland Trail Blazers is pretty awesome, and also a reminder of Steph Curry’s death grip on the point guard position in the Western Conference over the last decade-plus years.

And now how do you capture the sheer poetry of Chris Paul’s NBA odyssey? Here’s a man who spent six years trying to build something special in Los Angeles, watched it crumble in the cruelest ways imaginable, then spent seven seasons wandering the basketball wilderness like some sort of hardwood nomad…only to end up right back in L.A.

The 40-year-old Point God is home again, but this isn’t the same Clippers organization he left in 2017. This isn’t even the same planet.

When Lob City Had Everything Except the One Thing That Mattered

Remember those Lob City Clippers? Blake Griffin throwing down thunderous dunks, DeAndre Jordan protecting the rim like a seven-foot security system, and CP3 orchestrating it all with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. They had athleticism, they had highlights, they had the kind of explosive offense that made SportsCenter producers weep tears of joy.

What they didn’t have was that elite two-way wing who could create his own shot when the playoffs got nasty and defenses tightened up like a vice grip. They had good players (hell, they had great players) but injuries and inexplicable collapses marked their downfall. They did eliminate the Warriors out of the postseason in 2014, which set off Golden State’s meteoric rise.

They also lacked a traditional wing scorer who could get a bucket at will when the Lob City connection stalled. Paul himself acknowledged this fundamental flaw when he jumped ship to Houston in 2017, chasing a championship with James Harden. The message was clear: talent alone wasn’t enough. You needed that transcendent wing scorer, that guy who could bend the fabric of space-time when everything was on the line.

The Long Road Home

What followed was Chris Paul’s version of “Eat, Pray, Love”. Except it was more like “Facilitate, Compete, Survive.”

Houston gave him that elite guard in Harden, and they came tantalizingly close to toppling the Warriors dynasty. But Father Time remained undefeated, and Paul’s body betrayed him at the worst possible moment.

Oklahoma City was supposed to be a rebuild year, a chance to mentor young talent. Instead, CP3 dragged a team that had no business sniffing the playoffs to a respectable showing, proving that basketball IQ and veteran leadership could still move mountains.

Phoenix offered redemption: a NBA Finals appearances, MVP-level play from Devin Booker, the whole nine yards. But even that magical run couldn’t deliver the championship that has eluded Paul his entire career.

Then came the Warriors stint, which feels like the most fascinating footnote in this entire saga. Golden State had 56% win percentage in games he actually played. The Chris Paul Effect—that documented phenomenon where teams improve dramatically with his presence—was alive and well even in the Bay Area.

And with the San Antonio Spurs he was able to show the young phenom Victor Wenbamyama a deeper side of the game in ways that will probably unfold over the next decade of basketball. Ruh roh!

But here’s the thing about Chris Paul: he’s never been content just making teams better. He wants to make teams champions.

The New Clippers: Same Franchise, Different Universe

Fast-forward to 2025, and Paul finds himself back in Inglewood, but this time the Clippers have solved that eternal riddle that plagued Lob City. They’ve got Kawhi Leonard, who when healthy, one of the most devastating two-way wings in NBA history. They’ve got James Harden, Paul’s former running mate who can still create offense out of thin air. They’ve assembled what Yahoo Sports calls potentially the oldest roster in NBA history, with an average age over 33 years old.

This is the basketball equivalent of The Expendables folks, a collection of aging superstars who’ve decided that experience trumps athletic decline. Where Lob City was all bounce and athleticism, this Clippers team is pure basketball IQ and veteran savvy.

The contrast is stark and beautiful. Those early 2010s Clippers could run you off the court in transition, but they sometimes were limited in the half-court when the game slowed down. This current iteration might not have the same athletic ceiling, but they’ve got something arguably more valuable: championship-level talent at the positions that matter most.

Paul returning to this version of the Clippers feels like cosmic justice. He spent years searching for that missing piece, that elite wing who could carry the scoring load when it mattered most. Now he’s got two of them.

The Circle Comes Full

There’s something deeply nostalgic about athletes returning to where their stories began, especially when they’re carrying the wisdom that only comes from years of heartbreak and near-misses. Paul isn’t the same player who left Los Angeles seven years ago. He’s older, slower, more selective about his spots. But he’s also more dangerous in his own way, because I’m pretty sure by now he knows exactly what championship teams require.

The beautiful irony? Paul’s journey through the league, from Houston’s offensive brilliance to Oklahoma City’s overachievement to Phoenix’s Finals run to Golden State and San Antonio’s championship cultures, has given him a master class in different approaches to winning. He’s returning to the Clippers not just as a player, but as a walking encyclopedia of basketball DNA.

For Warriors fans, though, this reunion presents a delicious opportunity. Nothing would be more fitting than Golden State reminding CP3 of exactly why he left Los Angeles the first time by absolutely demolishing this nostalgic experiment. After all, the Warriors spent years being the ceiling that Paul couldn’t break through. Why should that change now?

Let the old man have his homecoming. Let him savor the sights and sounds of Intuit Dome. And then let the Warriors show him that some things never change…that when it comes to championship-level execution, the Warriors still own the deed to Paul’s basketball soul. With all due respect!