Chris Paul intends to join Spurs after clearing waivers
Chris Paul.
Chris Paul intends to sign with the Spurs once he clears waivers, Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report reports.
Paul was waived by the Warriors at the start of free agency. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent once he goes through waivers but he didn’t wait that long to choose his new team.
He’ll sign a one-year deal worth more than $11M, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
Earlier on Sunday, Marc Stein (X link) reported that San Antonio has a “strong” interest. The 12-time All-Star could be a natural, if short-term, pick-and-roll partner for Victor Wembanyama.
It’s unclear whether the Spurs intend to use Paul as their starting point guard or if they’ll have him coming off the bench, as he did a majority of this past season in his one year with the Warriors. San Antonio used a variety of players to initiate the offense in Wembanyama’s rookie season with Tre Jones getting a majority of the starts at that position.
San Antonio’s cap space gave it an advantage over some other potential suitors for Paul. The Spurs could sign him without waiving Devonte’ Graham, whose guarantee date was pushed back to July 8.
Graham’s contract is already partially guaranteed for $2.85M for next season, but it will increase to $12.65M if the Spurs retain him. If they waive Graham and their other non-guaranteed players, they would still have $16M in cap space at their disposal to sign Paul, cap expert Yossi Gozlan notes.
At the moment, the Spurs are considered an over-the-cap team. If they stay that way, they could instead sign Paul by using a majority of their $12.8M mid-level exception, ESPN’s Bobby Marks reports.
Golden State had to make a decision today whether to guarantee Paul’s $30M salary for the 2024-25 season. Both the Warriors and Paul agreed to push back the guarantee date from Friday to Sunday.
The Warriors had attempted to include Paul’s contract in a blockbuster deal, including a potential swap with the Clippers for Paul George. However, they were unable to pull anything off.
Paul, who turned 39 in May, remained productive in 2023-24, averaging 9.2 points, 6.8 assists, and 3.9 rebounds in 26.4 minutes per game in 58 appearances (18 starts) for the Warriors. He posted a shooting line of .441/.371/.827.
The rule prohibiting tax-apron teams from signing a waived player whose previous salary was higher than the full mid-level exception only applies if the player is cut during the regular season. Thus, Paul was free to sign with anyone.
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