2021 NBA free agency tracker: Grades for every deal so far
By Duncan Smith
Chris Paul – 4 years, $120 million (Phoenix Suns)
Chris Paul won’t be going anywhere after re-signing with the Phoenix Suns. His deal will be worth up to $120 million over the course of four years, and the Suns have the opportunity to run it back with a squad that cruised through the regular season and took the Milwaukee Bucks to six games in the NBA Finals.
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets, posited that Chris Paul had the worst contract in sports. Since then, he took the OKC Thunder to the playoffs and the Phoenix Suns to the Finals, and earned himself another nine figures to boot.
Paul’s age-34 season was outstanding in 2020-21. He averaged 16.4 points, 8.9 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game on shooting splits of 50-39-93 and had a Leadership Per 36 minutes of roughly infinite value.
This contract might age poorly, but there are those who thought his previous contract would age poorly as well and they got that wrong. So let’s wait to bury Chris Paul and his Suns. Still this is a heap of long-term money, so we’ll grade accordingly.