Chris Paul Explains Why He Opted Out of Clippers Extension

At first, hearing that Chris Paul has opted out of a three-year, $60 million extension with the Clippers sounds like a bad thing, but he explains his reasoning. 

While he opted out of this contract, according to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, next summer he can sign a five-year, $108 million extension. However, he hasn't given a difinitive answer about whether he'll do that or not either. Paul said: 

"I'll wait until next summer to decide everything. "It's funny, ESPN doesn't put at the bottom of the ticker, like why you don't do the three-year. But I opted in for this year or I would've had the opportunity to do that again this summer."

He also said that the Clippers former GM Neil Olshey had a lot to do with his initial decision to come to LA: 

"Neil's gone and that was tough. Neil had a lot to do with me being here with the Clippers so I'm always going to be grateful to him for that. But he has a family to take of, things like that."

So, it sounds like a lot of Paul's decision will depend on the organization and how much they do to build a winning team, not just a contender, and who can blame him? While he isn't a bad player, he's still getting older and doesn't have time to wait around for a team to be built. 

Likely he'll sign the extension next summer, but it also sounds like he wants to wait and see how this organization handles everything their going through this off-season.