After 21 years, Chris Paul is calling it a career, he announced on his Instagram Friday. 

12 All-Star selections, 11 All-NBA selections and one Rookie of the Year later, the future Hall of Famer's rocky final season has come to a close. Paul had said at the beginning of this season that 2025-26 would be his last, but it certainly didn't shape up to be the retirement tour that Paul or anyone else had expected. 

He rejoined the Los Angeles Clippers for his last ride. The Clippers may not have been the team that Paul debuted with back in 2005, that was the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, but the Clippers were the team that Paul spent some of the most meaningful years of his career with as he put the Los Angeles franchise on the map.

Things seemed tough from the start. Paul played off the bench, a role which he expected coming in, but reports of locker room friction and personality differences between Paul, his teammates and head coach Ty Lue soured a situation that was already being defined by a rough 6-21 start for Los Angeles. 

Paul's attempts at leadership and holding his teammates accountable seemingly led to more problems and solutions and the end of his time with the Clippers finally came about in a now infamous release from the team in the middle of the night after the team had traveled to Houston to play the Rockets. 

Paul's relationship with Lue seemed to be the most fractured after reports that the two weren't speaking and that Lue had reportedly refused a meeting that Paul requested to address the frostiness in the locker room that he was feeling. 

Following his release in early December, Paul was in a kind of limbo as he wasn't playing, but he also wasn't a free agent, and it was up to the Clippers to trade him before the deadline to give him a chance to play for another team again. 

Paul was ultimately traded to the Toronto Raptors in a three-team trade between them, the Clippers and the Brooklyn Nets, but he never played a game up north and was instead waived by the Raptors early on Friday, preceding Paul's retirement announcement. 

Still, despite how it ended, Paul's career is full of far more highlights than lowlights.

Whether it's the hope and excitement that he brought to the sometimes forgotten Los Angeles franchise as a member of "Lob City" or his one-year stint mentoring a young Oklahoma City Thunder team that's now running the league, Paul left an undeniable mark on his generation of basketball stars.