ATLANTA — The late-night meeting that brought Chris Paul’s LA Clippers career to a stunning and unceremonious end was supposed to take place during normal business hours.

After all these weeks of building frustrations between the two sides, with Paul’s dissatisfaction being felt in every corner of the Clippers operation during a brutal start to their season, the team’s longtime president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, sent word to the future Hall of Famer that they needed to meet on Tuesday evening in Atlanta. The tone of his message demanded a change in Paul’s plans.

Paul, league sources said, had planned on attending the men’s basketall game at his alma mater, Wake Forest, and then rejoining the Clippers in Atlanta afterwards. But he changed his plans, spending the first part of Tuesday attending an art festival in Miami before hopping on the team’s chartered flight that was scheduled to land in Atlanta around 6 p.m. local time.

But there was an unexpected issue: The team plane had mechanical problems in Miami, causing an hours-long delay that, in the end, would lead to Frank and Paul discussing their unresolvable issues deep into the wee hours. By the time Paul shared the news of his release on social media at 2:40 a.m. in Atlanta, writing “Just found out I’m being sent home” on an Instagram post, the only people confused about why it had happened were outside of the Clippers’ walls. Whether you agreed with the decision or not, this much was clear: Paul’s constant criticism internally had been the root of the perceived problem.

The notion of Paul being unfiltered and unrelenting with his viewpoint is hardly something new. Anyone who paid attention during his storied 21-year career — including his Lob City run with the Clippers from 2011 to 2017 — knows that his leadership style isn’t for everyone. And when the Clippers signed up for this reunion in July, adding him to their veteran-laden group by way of a one-year, $3.6 million deal, team sources say they went to great lengths to manage his expectations regarding his role. The goal was to minimize the chance that something like this might occur.

Yet as the Clippers continued to struggle, falling to 5-16 during this season in which they fully intended on contending for a title, league sources say the acerbic nature of Paul’s perspective was met with increasing resistance from those around him. Head coach Ty Lue and his staff, specifically, were known to be at wit’s end when it came to dealing with Paul. Some teammates took exception with his disparaging tone.

During his iconic “Lob City” years with the Clippers, Chris Paul formed a dynamic trio with All-Stars Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. 

League sources say Paul had several meetings recently with Clippers officials regarding their concerns with his approach, with one source indicating that there was a request for him to stop with the “locker room lawyering.” League sources said Paul was openly critical of the team in a film session on Tuesday, but — as Frank indicated — the decision to move on from Paul had already been made.

“It wasn’t working out the way that I had planned and we had planned and it’s unfortunate,” Frank said Wednesday at a virtual news conference. “You don’t take decisions like this lightly at all. Especially a guy that meant so much to the league and so much our organization, but just felt it was the right decision to make and unfortunately it was a really, really hard decision to make, but I think it was the right one for the team and organization.”

Frank also said his decision “had nothing to do with one incident or one meeting that did or did not happen,” declining to further elaborate on how he decided to move on from a man many consider to be the greatest Clippers player of all time. He said his face-to-face with Paul began at 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday and lasted three hours, describing it as a “long, long, long, long, long meeting.”

Paul, 40, was in and out of Lue’s rotation during this trying season in which the Clippers entered Wednesday’s game against the Hawks with a 5-16 record. He appeared in 16 games for the Clippers this season, averaging 2.9 points and 3.3 assists in a career-low 14.3 minutes per game. Paul was coming off a campaign in San Antonio last year in which he started all 82 games for the Spurs, averaging 8.8 points and 7.4 assists.

Because Paul signed as a free agent with LA, he is not eligible to be traded until Dec. 15. Frank said the Clippers would “continue to work with Chris’ representatives” in determining how Paul is ultimately removed from the roster. Frank also made clear the team was not blaming its poor performance on Paul. Reading between the lines, this was a move made because Paul’s presence and demeanor with the team while it was losing was not considered helpful.

Paul coming back to the LA Clippers seemed like the obvious move. After his one-year pact with the San Antonio Spurs, Paul indicated that his career was winding down. After leaving the Clippers in 2018, Paul’s family had stayed in Los Angeles as he hopped from one stop to the next: From Houston to Oklahoma City, a three-year run in Phoenix, a one-season stop with Golden State and then a successful season with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs.

Still, the Clippers put a roster together in the offseason that made it clear where Paul’s place on the team would be: he wouldn’t be a starter or even a regular rotation player. It took the Clippers until the fourth week of July to sign Paul. While celebrating Paul as a Clippers legend and praising him for his ability at this stage of his career, Frank was careful to use his statement announcing Paul’s addition to clearly and publicly outline Paul’s role, as if to defuse any potential confusion and conflict.

“Chris will help fortify our backcourt with his exceptional ballhandling, playmaking and shooting,” Frank said in the team’s statement. “He is joining us as a reserve point guard and is excited to fill whatever role T. Lue asks him to play. He wants to be part of the group and we’re fortunate to have him back.”

Paul can, and on numerous occasions has, served as a mentor and adviser to younger players who look up to him. A 12-time All-Star who is second all time in assists and steals behind John Stockton, Paul most recently put his arm around rising Atlanta star Dyson Daniels. When the Hawks were in Los Angeles last month, Paul was spotted in an engaged chat with Daniels, telling him, among other things, to “shoot the ball.”

“He basically said I work too hard on defense and every other aspect of the game, so I basically need to reward myself by shooting the ball,” Daniels said Wednesday morning, before the Hawks’ game against the Clippers. “It all makes sense. Very simple but yeah, coming from a guy like that, it definitely helps to hear.”

There were chances for Paul to do the same for Clippers teammates, and he would mentor the team’s few young players from time to time. But the Clippers entered the season as the NBA’s oldest team, with an average age per player of 33.2 years. The coaching staff is also a veteran group, with lifers like Lue, and Jeff Van Gundy, and Brian Shaw and Larry Drew, and Paul’s critiques came off like grating criticisms that were unwelcome while the team was trying to find itself while playing through injury, league sources said.

Paul’s retirement tour through the league didn’t last two weeks. On Nov. 22, Paul unveiled that this would be his final season through a social media post.

“Do I want to see CP go out like this? No, I have a lot of respect for him,” Lue said. “He’s been a friend of mine over the years, and you never want to see a great go out like this, but I’m pretty sure he will find something because he’s a great player.

“I don’t like it for CP, but it just wasn’t a good fit.”