Chris Paul had Boston in his sights after opting out of LA

A new docu-series from ESPN chronicles Chris Paul's free agency this past offseason. The first episode aired on ESPN yesterday, and with it came some revelations into Paul's thought process as he opted out of the final year in his contract with the Los Angeles Clippers and headed into the open market for his services.

Particularly interesting for Celtics fans is how Paul was extremely intrigued with coming to Boston. Based on his comments while talking to Disney CEO and friend Bob Iger in Part 1 of the series Boston was one of his top choices:


Paul named Houston, Boston, and San Antonio as his prime landing spots, although he had reservations about the Spurs in large part because of not knowing how much longer coach Greg Popovich will be manning the helm there:

"That's not the Spurs without Greg Popovich."

He then turned his comments to Boston, stating that he was very interested in joining the Celtics but was unsure if the feeling was mutual:

"They made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and they got the No. 1 pick," Paul said. "I was like, it would actually be kind of dumb for them to pay me $35 million. I don't know. You know what I mean? So I was like, they won't hurt my feelings, but at least they need to let me know if they're even interested."

The Celtics were all-in on their Gordon Hayward pursuit that they probably did little more than kick the tires on Paul. With Isaiah Thomas coming off of an MVP caliber season I don't think they had interest of adding an older point guard to the team, even if he is as good as Paul. Filling their cap room with a 32 year old player at $35-million doesn't jive as well with the plan going forward that the Celtics are still building for the future. Case and point the Celtics traded in a 28-year old Isaiah for a younger model in Kyrie Irving not long after.

But Paul's interest in the Celtics speaks volumes about what is building in Boston. He noted that the most important things to him were the team and the culture, and clearly he saw both of those things here.


Related: What is Boston's outlook with Gordon Hayward out?

Photo Credit - GETTY Images

Follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkAL401



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