Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook Both Retired in 2026

Published August 15, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

Chris Paul retired on February 13, 2026, after 21 seasons. Russell Westbrook retired on August 12, 2026, after 18. They arrived three years apart, played the same position for two decades, and answered the question of what a point guard is supposed to be in almost perfectly opposite ways. Neither won a championship. Both are going to the Hall of Fame.

Two answers to the same question

The question every point guard of that generation had to answer was what to do with a possession when the offense breaks down.

Paul’s answer was control. He played at a tempo he selected, took the shot the defense conceded rather than the one he wanted, and treated a turnover as a moral failure. He led the league in assists five times and in steals six, which is the most in league history, and he shot 47 percent from the floor for a career while running an offense at a usage rate most guards could not survive.

Westbrook’s answer was force. He attacked the rim at a volume no other guard of his era sustained, generated his own rebounds so he could push in transition, and accepted the shooting percentages that came with it. He averaged a triple-double for four separate seasons, which only Oscar Robertson had ever done once.

Neither answer was wrong. They were the two available extremes, and the league spent fifteen years arguing about which was better while both men aged out of the argument.

The numbers, side by side

Both cleared 20,000 points and 10,000 assists, a group that otherwise contains only LeBron James.

The rings neither of them got

This is the part that will follow both of them, and it is worth being precise about rather than sentimental.

Paul reached one NBA Finals, with Phoenix in 2021, and lost it after his team went up 2-0. He was on the floor for a Rockets team that led Golden State 3-2 in the 2018 conference finals before he pulled a hamstring, and Houston lost the next two. The counterfactual is doing a lot of work in his legacy, and the counterfactual is genuinely close.

Westbrook reached one Finals too, with Oklahoma City in 2012, alongside Kevin Durant and James Harden, and lost to Miami in five. That team was 23, 23 and 22 years old. Everyone assumed there would be more. Durant left in 2016, Harden had already been traded in 2012, and there were none.

Two Finals appearances between them, in 39 combined seasons, and no titles. It is the strongest available argument that a point guard cannot carry a team alone, and it is also the reason both of them are undervalued in casual conversation.

Why the era closed with them

The position they played does not really exist anymore, and that is not nostalgia, it is roster construction.

The 2025-26 MVP was a guard who averaged 31.1 points and 6.6 assists. The best player in the Eastern Conference plays power forward. The 2026 Finals MVP, Jalen Brunson, is a scoring guard who happens to pass well. Offenses now run through whoever is best at generating a shot, regardless of listed position, and the specialist whose job was to organize four other people has been absorbed into that.

Paul was the last great version of the specialist. Westbrook was the argument that the specialist should stop specializing. The league went a third way, and the third way does not need either of them, which is roughly how every era ends.

Adam Silver’s statement on Paul spent as much space on his years running the players’ association, and on the collective bargaining agreements negotiated in that time, as on his passing. That is a fair reflection of what the job became for a certain kind of guard: run the team on the floor, then run the union off it.

Related reading

• Chris Paul
• Russell Westbrook
• Oscar Robertson
• Every NBA MVP in order
• Triple-double records
• Steve Nash

Sources

Paul’s retirement date (February 13, 2026), the Toronto waiver, the Instagram post and Adam Silver’s statement from NBA.com. Westbrook’s retirement date (August 12, 2026), the Michael B. Jordan narration, the Sacramento and Washington offers, and his final career totals (209 triple-doubles, 10,351 assists, 27,176 points) from NBA.com and ESPN. Paul’s career totals (23,058 points, 12,552 assists, 2,728 steals) and both players’ All-Star and MVP records from Basketball-Reference. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 2025-26 line from Basketball-Reference.