The Clippers Are Fumbling Another Situation. This Time, It Involves Chris Paul.

Take a look at all the retired jerseys around the NBA.

Flying next to the Celtics’ 18 championship banners are a league-high 24 (!!!) retired jersey numbers in the TD Garden rafters. The Lakers retired Kobe Bryant’s jersey-twice. Heck, the Raptors, established in 1995, retired Vince Carter’s No. 15 last year and plan to lift Kyle Lowry’s No. 7 up into the rafters later this season.

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Entering their 58th season as an NBA franchise, the Clippers are the only team to not have a single jersey number retired aside from Bill Russell’s No. 6, which all 30 teams honored in 2022. It’s a pretty baffling stat considering the Clippers have been in existence since they entered the NBA as the Buffalo Braves in 1970. Since their first game nearly 60 years ago, 12 new NBA franchises have been established, and all 12 of those franchises have retired at least one jersey number.

It doesn’t appear like that strange fact is going to change any time soon in Inglewood.

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Bradley Beal, who the Clippers acquired last offseason and re-signed to a two-year contract in August, is switching his jersey number from No. 0-which he wore in the six games he played last year-to No. 3. That fact became widespread Thursday when the NBA world noticed the Clippers’ official team site is now selling Beal jerseys with the No. 3 attached. The problem? That No. 3 is supposed to have a special place in Clippers history. It was worn by the recently retired Chris Paul from 2011 to ’16, and no Clippers player donned that digit until Paul returned last season for what was expected to be his NBA finale.

That storybook ending didn’t go as he wished. Paul was unceremoniously waived in December after 16 games.

“It’s probably one of the most disrespectful things that I’ve endured,” Paul said of his release on the Build or Break podcast. “I’ve been through a lot of wild stuff in my career, and having older kids and a wife who’s very tapped in, and they know the daily goings-on as far as that team and that organization. Obviously I was upset, but my family, my people, everybody. … I think just because of the investment we made in the team for as long as we have, and to see the way stuff was handled. What it lets you know is that no matter what you do or what you’ve done, nobody cares.”

“Nobody cares.” Oof.

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When Paul signed with the Clippers last summer, the team had the chance to do something right. The franchise’s all-time leader in assists and offensive win shares was returning to Los Angeles to contribute off the bench alongside James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. Ideally, the season would tie a bow around arguably the greatest career in Clippers history.

Paul could contribute off the bench and ride off into the sunset. Then, soon after his final game, the Clippers could celebrate his career by making his No. 3 jersey the first retired number in franchise history.

That’s what a functional organization would do. After all, over his tenure Paul established the Clippers into a consistent playoff team for the first time-even if he never made it out of the second round.

However, the Clippers did anything but honor a franchise legend. Late on a random Wednesday night in December while the team was in the middle of a five-game road trip, Los Angeles announced it was cutting ties with Paul. The veteran guard found out like everybody else and responded with an Instagram Story that read, “Just found out I’m being sent home,” with a peace emoji.

And now, after they forced Paul into retirement a few months before he wanted to, the Clippers handed his No. 3 jersey number over to Beal.

That move has been highly criticized on social media. Beal saw the chatter and appeared to respond with two tweets:

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Is that the topic of the day? Lol

– Bradley Beal (@RealDealBeal23) September 10, 2026

He’s a legend!

The HISTORY and BRAND can’t be touched, nor erased!!!

– Bradley Beal (@RealDealBeal23) September 10, 2026

It sure sounds like he’s keeping that No. 3 jersey, though. And that’s not on Beal-he’s worn No. 3 his entire career outside of six games last season. It’s on the organization to protect that number and properly honor a franchise legend.

Entering last season, the Clippers didn’t have a feud with Chris Paul, but they might now. It took a decade and an ownership change for the Timberwolves and franchise legend Kevin Garnett to get back on good terms. Minnesota is finally retiring Garnett’s No. 21 in February.

According to Paul, someone within the Clippers organization, perhaps president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, told him as he was being sent out the door in December that his jersey would be retired one day.

“He said that to me before he sent me home,” Paul said on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast in February.

But as the Wolves learned with Garnett, it takes two to tango. And now that the Clippers are allowing Beal to wear No. 3, perhaps Paul does not want to tango.

This situation, of course, is all on the backs of the NBA announcing last week that the Clippers are being stripped of five first-round picks after evidence was found of salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard. Owner Steve Ballmer is suspended for a year, and two front office executives will also be suspended with no pay.

Los Angeles had a chance for some rare positive PR entering this season. That chance was fumbled. The Clippers just can’t get out of their own way.

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