Admittedly, this is a huge long-shot and would be stupid of Hornets, but there were rumblings of potential upheaval in Charlotte including the potential of dealing Chris Paul this offseason. They caveat immediately to say how dumb it would be, but let's play what if for a minute. What would you give up for Chris Paul? Would you send Tracy McGrady, Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry and 2-3 draft picks (whatever it took and works within rules) for Chris Paul and $$ fodder? I tried to grab the best of our young kids to send and McGrady has a) star power and b) expiring contract so there should be big value there. Also, any draft pick they want is theirs as far as I am concerned. Work for anyone? Any chance of working for Hornets?
They are not going to dismantle the franchise by trading Paul. Maybe other pieces (Chandler, Posey, West, etc.), but definitely not Paul.
Zero chance that the Rockets get him. But I would go with the proverbial "anyone but Yao". And rely on Morey to fill the rest of the parts by working his magic.
Chris Paul = ticket sales. If the Hornets or Shinn need the money he's the last guy they want to trade.
I don't think the Hornets would make a deal with a divisional rival. Though for fun imagine a defense where the inside is clogged up with 2 guys whose height average over 7' and the perimeter covered by the 4th 5th and 6th best defenders in the league (per DPoY voting). Might as well call the Toybox Fort Knox instead.
Seems reasonable, but still hope this happen. Just like Grizzlies trade Pau Gasol to Los Angeles, that time, the Lakers need a good big guy badly(Bynum was injured). Have a big deal with division rival seems really absurd.
not that i think they would ever trade him but if they were fielding offers i would tell them they can have everything but yao. take all of our young guys,heck take all of our rotation players, take the toyota center, take the color red, take clyde... please. anything to pair paul with yao. and every other team would make a similar offer (everything but their best player). and in some cases, they would trade everything including their best player.
chris paul is a great player but my question is how good would he do in rick adlemans system. He is a type of player who needs to hold the ball to be effective in he sure as hell is always effective but then that would hurt the motion offense we play. I mean i would give up landry brooks mac and round picks for paul but only knowing that he would work in the offense.
I would trade yao for him. Yao is getting old, and chris paul literally carried that team. With CP3 I think scola would avg 18-20 pts.
Yao is untradeable. Ron will be a free agent. Trade EVERYONE ELSE. Give them 13 players if they want them. Yao + Ron as a FA + Paul + 5 guys off the waiver wire (presuming Morey's picking em) = championship basketball for a number of years.
Yao's worth extends beyond the court. He stays until he retires, IMO. I can't see New Orleans dealing Paul, even if it allows them to get rid of their bloated contracts (Peja, Tyson, etc). True, they are in complete financial disarray (Shinn's still cussing Stern over leaving OKC's $$$), but if they move Paul, they become irrelevant on the court and have no draw at all. That's a death sentence to a team that was already pulling Enron tricks to inflate their reported attendance numbers before Katrina. Next year, the tax line is going to be $65M, if not lower. The Hornets lost a lot of money this season (prompting the Chandler trade attempt), and they've already got $76.5M committed next year before filling out their roster with at least 3-4 more players. Peja's the biggest problem, a 13 ppg one-dimensional washed up shooter due $14.2M next year (and $15.3M after). Shinn has been a disastrous owner of the Hornets, starting with the day he lowballed Mourning and destroyed the Hive. But I can't believe he'd be that foolish to move Paul. Something I COULD see happening? A sequel to the Allan Houston Rule. Too many teams are in the red, and an eroding tax line puts a lot of them in tax territory next year with no way to get under it. Giving teams a second opportunity to buy out players and have them not count on the cap/tax books would seemingly be the only solution. Evan
