Chris Paul comes out of this with an interesting legacy. In practical terms he was barely involved. He may have requested to be traded from New Orleans but that was totally superfluous, he was on his way out of there regardless and everyone knew it. This has really been a story about Stern, the owners, and why it's a terrible idea for a league to collectively own a team. On the other hand, Paul's name was the headline on all the coverage and he's inextricable from what happened, whether he did anything to deserve it or not.
He's also now unavoidably connected to the lockout, in fact he is probably now the third face of it with Stern and Billy Hunter. One side will see his case as proof that the lockout worked and that the owners reasserted some power. The other side will see it as proof of the opposite and that the commissioner's time in the captain's chair is running out. Both sides are at least half right. When the book about the last six months in the NBA's history is written the final chapter will likely be about the CP3 saga and how the league went completely off the tracks for two weeks trying to prove...something.
To answer your question about how he feels about it I can only assume that he's thrilled with the result but not the process. While I'm sure that he felt like a very well-paid piece of rope being used for the tug-of-war between the teams and the league this has actually ended up being a lot of free publicity for Paul and the Clippers.
Unless CP3 is a total idiot he had to know that trade talks starting the same day the new CBA was signed were bound to draw some negative attention. I'm sure he didn't expect the rain of nonsense that ultimately resulted, but he had to expect some backlash. When it all started spiraling he probably thought that he was going to be stuck in New Orleans or end up in a similarly small market under league mandate for this season. That, along with the label (fair or not) of discontented superstar could not have made him very happy. But now let's look at the results.
First, he's out of New Orleans, which is exactly what he wanted. Win.
Second, he's in L.A., which is a huge market and an awesome city in which to be young and rich. Win.
Third, he's not on the Lakers, which means he doesn't have to play with Kobe, hear all the talk about whether they can coexist, and try to win on a team with no big-men. Oh and as an added bonus the rest of the basketball world doesn't automatically hate him for appearing to force his way to such a loath-able team. He and Kobe together would have had a Miami Heat-sized target on their back. Win.
Lastly, he got paid. Who doesn't want that?
I'm sure if you gave him the choice he would rather have not been the test subject for the new CBA and for Stern's declining influence and authority. However, you can't say that he's a loser in this deal and I'm sure he's pretty happy with it now that it's done.
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