SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama seem to already be clicking. Paul — a 12-time All-Star entering his 20th season in the NBA — made his preseason debut with San Antonio on Wednesday night, getting a loud ovation from his new home crowd when he was the final player announced as part of the Spurs' starting lineup against the Orlando Magic. And his first assist in his new uniform was fitting — an alley-oop lob that set Wembanyama up for a dunk late in the first quarter.
Paul finished with five points and three assists, two of them to Wembanyama, in 23 minutes. The Spurs are Paul's seventh NBA franchise and when he makes his regular-season debut — preseason games don't count for anything official — the 6-foot guard will become the 11th player to appear in 20 NBA seasons. Vince Carter played in 22 seasons, a record that LeBron James will tie when he makes his first appearance this season.
Robert Parish, Kevin Willis, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki all played 21 seasons, and four other players — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Jamal Crawford and Udonis Haslem — reached the 20-season mark. Paul is also third on the NBA's all-time assist list with 11,894. He's 197 shy of Jason Kidd (12,097) for No.
2 on that list, and John Stockton holds the record with 15,806. Paul's first game with the Spurs was one of many notable debuts that will occur throughout the preseason by top players who'll be in new uniforms this season. Among them: Russell Westbrook .