21 years ago this week: Chris Paul’s NBA debut opens the Hornets’ Katrina season in Oklahoma City with a 93-67 rout of the Kings

Twenty-one years ago this week, on Tuesday, November 1, 2005, Chris Paul played his first NBA game, and he did it in a city that was not supposed to have an NBA team. Two months after Hurricane Katrina drove the Hornets out of New Orleans, the team opened its season at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City and beat the Sacramento Kings 93-67 in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,163.

Paul, the fourth pick in the 2005 draft out of Wake Forest, was 20 years old. He started at point guard and finished with 13 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. It was a quiet line for a player who would end his career second in NBA history in both assists and steals, but the night itself was anything but quiet.

A team without a home

Katrina hit the Gulf Coast at the end of August 2005, and the Hornets’ arena in New Orleans was not ready for basketball. The league moved the team to Oklahoma City for most of the season. The Hornets would play 35 home games at the Ford Center, with the rest in Louisiana, and they wore a small “OKC” patch on their jerseys.

Owner George Shinn admitted he was unsure about the idea at first. By opening night he had changed his mind. “When we go back to New Orleans, this city will get a franchise, I’m convinced,” Shinn said before the game. He was right: three years later, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder.

The fans treated the Hornets like their own. There was a street party outside the arena before tipoff, the crowd stood until P.J. Brown scored the first basket, and the public address announcer called them the “hometown Hornets.” Former Oklahoma State star Desmond Mason and the rookie Paul got the loudest cheers during introductions.

The box score

Final: Hornets 93, Kings 67, Tuesday, November 1, 2005, at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. The Hornets led 44-33 at halftime and won every quarter.
Chris Paul: 13 points on 3-of-7 shooting, 1-of-3 from three and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line, with 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 1 block in 33 minutes. The Hornets were plus-23 with him on the floor, and he did not commit a foul.
The rest of the Hornets: P.J. Brown had 20 points and 10 rebounds. J.R. Smith, also making his NBA debut, scored 19. Speedy Claxton added 17 off the bench, and David West grabbed 11 rebounds.
The Kings: Peja Stojaković scored 18 and Shareef Abdur-Rahim 14, but Sacramento made only 25 of 80 shots, 31.3 percent.

The Hornets had gone 18-64 the season before and were the lowest-scoring team in the league. Against a Kings team expected to contend in the West, they pulled away in the second quarter. Smith, a 20-year-old who came straight from high school as the 18th pick, brought the crowd up with two big dunks, including a two-handed slam on the break, and a 12-0 burst made it 58-38.

A rookie season that changed the franchise

Paul did not stay quiet for long. He scored 26 points on 10-of-14 shooting against Dallas on November 12, and on November 18 against Atlanta he had 25 points, 12 assists and 5 steals in a 95-92 win at the Ford Center. He played 78 games, all as a starter, and averaged 16.1 points, 7.8 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 2.2 steals in 36 minutes.

The Hornets more than doubled their win total, going 38-44 and staying in the playoff race until the final week. Paul was named Rookie of the Year in May 2006 with 124 of 125 first-place votes. The only other first-place vote went to Utah’s Deron Williams, who had been drafted one spot ahead of him. “It’s an honor to get 124 out of 125, but that one, that one, that’s just motivation for next year,” Paul said.

The team spent most of one more season in Oklahoma City before moving back to New Orleans full time in 2007. In 2007-08, Paul led the Hornets to 56 wins and the second round of the playoffs and finished second in the MVP voting.

"Chris Paul, A.K.A. the Point God."

2nd ALL-TIME in assists.
2nd ALL-TIME in steals.

21 years running the point & defending the point of attack… congrats on a LEGENDARY career, @CP3! pic.twitter.com/hZzRsnlbVW
— NBA (@NBA) February 18, 2026

The Point God’s 21 years

Paul played six seasons for the Hornets before a trade sent him to the Clippers in December 2011. He went on to Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Golden State and San Antonio, and he reached the NBA Finals with the Suns in 2021. He never won a championship, but he made 12 All-Star teams, 11 All-NBA teams and 9 All-Defensive teams, won Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012, and was named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team.

He played 1,370 regular-season games and finished with 23,058 points, 12,552 assists and 2,728 steals. Only John Stockton has more assists and more steals. Paul was also the first player to reach both 20,000 points and 10,000 assists. After returning to the Clippers for a final season, he played his last game on December 1, 2025, and announced his retirement on February 13, 2026. “This is it! After 21 years I’m stepping away from basketball,” he wrote.

It started 21 years ago this week, with 13 points in a borrowed arena, for a team that had lost its home and a city that was auditioning for the NBA. Both of them found what they were looking for.