Chris Paul Craziness

Recently, the New Orleans Hornets attempted to put together a trade that would send their All-World talent point guard Chris Paul to the Lakers in a three way trade including the Houston Rockets. The Hornets are a franchise owned by the NBA, as previous owner George Shinn agreed to sell the team to the league so that they could find a suitable buyer that would keep them in the New Orleans area. As the ownership group, it is within the limits of the NBA's authority to veto any trades on the table involving the Hornets and their superstar Paul.

Not so fast...

When the news hit that they had done just that, the basketball world was turned on its ear. I couldn't believe it myself, as I had been really fired up about it when I read the news at work. I was calling upon the fates to destroy all the knees of that supposed-to-be team of Lakers, because deep down I knew that was going to be a very scary team. Yet as scary as it was, it was also oddly exciting.

The terrible thing about all this is that I -hate- the Lakers. Back when they trounced my Sixers in the finals so many years ago, I declared my eternal hatred for the Lake Show. I have felt redemption in their struggles, especially their down years before Pau came to town and in the playoffs this last year when they got handily disposed of and disgraced by a total lack of sportsmanship. Just the same, I cringed when I saw them raise the trophy those two years, dropping one and a half worthy opponents along the way. To this day, I have only drafted one Laker on a fantasy team, but for trade purposes because I didn't want to get a center that wasn't at least as good as Bynum. That one proved difficult...

Yet just as Bill Simmons described in his most recent blog post, even us haters can't help but get excited by the prospect of seeing a potentially dominant team come together. If they could have dealt for Paul, surely they would have also made a play at David West to complete their lineup. Bringing those two longtime teammates (All-Star teammates!) in to complete a lineup also featuring Kobe, Metta World Peace, and Bynum would have been truly formidable. Imagine that team getting thrown up against the Heat for the next three or four years! For the kind of money they would need to sign West, it might be necessary to amnesty one of their higher paid role players (I would guess Metta) but had the trade gone down as it was planned, they would have shed major payroll by shedding two large contracts while only taking back one. That would have been a scary lineup. No depth at all, since your key reserves wind up being Matt Barnes, Steve Blake and Derrick Caracter. But definitely good enough to match up with the Heat on any given day.

I aspire to be this guy one day.... how sad is THAT?

But the main story here is the Hornets. GM Dell Demps would have gotten a fantastic package of players to build a team around, yet the deal still was not good enough for the NBA ownership to allow the trade to be completed. Despite the leak of Cavs owner Dan Gilbert's e-mail to league officials condemning the trade and insisting many other owners agreed with him, the press release from the league claimed the veto came about from reasons they classified as a "basketball decision". This is obviously total BS, and there isn't anybody out there who's fooled. David Stern is pulling strings, and ultimately pulling the rug out from under the executives, players and fans who have been so invested in these proceedings.

But really, what kind of negotiating do we expect from the league executives? During the lockout, these were the people who were always considered icy and combative to the point that the players were ready to file anti-trust lawsuits against them. According to David Aldridge, you could say that as the ownership for the Hornets are just simply trying to drive for a better deal. It may be playing the devil's advocate a bit, but if you think about the position of the team from the owner's stand point, wouldn't you try to run up as many assets as possible in exchange for your ultimate commodity, a superstar point guard? If that letter never saw the light of day, you might actually believe that these frugal bastards that currently run the Hornets were actually trying to play hard ball with this trade.

All of that being said, I don't know how much more the Hornets could expect to get at this point. They could potentially have to ship out another player in return for additional draft picks, which Aldridge seems to think will help the deal become more satisfactory. That seems to be the key to me, is to sweeten the deal with the potential to harvest young talent to help make the Hornets a potential Oklahoma City clone down the road. This is where things get tricky, as both the Lakers and Rockets will never have attractive draft picks to offer since both are playoff contenders. If the Hornets want younger talent in return for their superstar, then is it possible they need to try to find a new third team (leaving Houston with a pissed off group of players) or find a way to bring in a fourth team with helpful draft picks that could really use Emeka Okafor or Trevor Ariza.

Pau Gasol just can't handle the awesomeness that is Trevor Ariza

If by some extreme circumstance we come to find that it really was a ploy to (somehow) get a better deal for the franchise, it would be seen as an expert move. At the same time, the risks are just as high that they might wind up asking for too much from the other teams. The worst case scenario for this team is that they can't find some way to get some return for Paul, who is virtually guaranteed to leave New Orleans at season's end when he can opt out of his contract. When everything is said and done, there might not be a better deal to be had than this.

As of right now, the three teams have been given the blessings of the owners to try and rework the deal that would send Paul to LA. Some wonder if any trade is suitable at all anymore, and if Paul truly is forced to stick in New Orleans because of the fallout from this decision then it will surely cripple the franchise after this year when Paul walks away to go and chase rings with Carmelo and Amare in New York, Kobe and Howard/Bynum in LA or any other potential super team in the works with a big market team.

Today was the official opening day of the NBA season, and the stories rage on. This really is gonna be a crazy, crazy season...