Chris Paul - Hornet for Life!

The NBA will be starting up in less than two weeks now. Christmas day. Yet with so few days before the start of the season, many big names on the trading block could find new homes within a week of the start of the season! CHAOS!

Among those is Dwight Howard, who now is lowering his trade demands from Orlando. Many thought he could be traded to the Lakers and become a modern-day Shaq. This appears unlikely now. However, the Chris Paul fiasco is giving everybody in the NBA a headache, and EVERY player / coach / owner / fan has a reason to be interested in the trade discussions between LA and NO.

Chris Paul is going to free agency after the 2011-12 season, so New Orleans decided to try to trade him now where they can get something in return. In a three team trade, each team appears to win:

Lakers get: Chris Paul (from NO)

Rockets get: Pau Gasol (from LA)

Hornets get: Lamar Odom (from LA),
                      Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic (from HOU),
                      2012 first round pick (from HOU via NY)

The Lakers would get the talented Chris Paul to join Kobe Bryant in the backcourt, Houston would get a big-man presence in Pau Gasol, and the Hornets get the talented Odom and many young upcoming athletes from the Rockets (plus a 1st round pick to further their development).

Sounds good right? WRONG!

The rub was that the Hornets are currently owned by the NBA. They (mainly David Stern, but speaking through all team owners) said for "basketball reasons" that the trade would be rejected. The real reason? A small-market team was about to lose their only big name player. Boston and Miami have already started the trend of creating all-star teams in big markets, and if the trend continues, teams like New Orleans (like Cleveland) will not be able to keep the big name players, and we might as well have 10 NBA teams (or even fewer) at that point!

Here's what I don't get: this trade helped all parties. It would have made the Hornets a better team (not immediately, but in one more year), the Rockets fixing their frontcourt, and the Lakers adding a playmaker to their already stellar roster. Here's another case of an overbearing organization sticking their noses where they shouldn't. The result (even after many numerous reattempts) is the Hornets still having Paul, and that probably will not change. So now instead of getting all of these prospects, they'll get nothing. The Lakers will still be strong and might still get Howard, and Houston, well, they're still in trouble. They wanted to protect the small teams like New Orleans or even Houston...to me though it appears that the only team of the three that will benefit out of the rejected trade is the big market Lakers. Contradictory. Good work, NBA.