Technically he cannot be traded this year is what it sounds like if the teams can keep blocking the trade for him.
I am equivocal about this because today highlighted two things: 1. We NEED, NEED, NEED a superstar level player. Pau Gasol even though he was on the borderline of that attribution still routinely put up PER's in the top 20, and he would have at least put us back on the road to respectability. 2. David Stern is under a lot of pressure from owners not to turn his sport into a rigged 3-way competition between LA, Boston, and Miami. Miami's ok but for Boston and LA to keep making lopsided trades like that and rearming for championship runs was not healthy for his league. The second part might initially seem to be bad for us, since we don't get Gasol anymore, but when you look at what we were giving up (Scola, Martin, Dragic, the Knicks 2012 pick), that was a HUGE haul to give and we probably wouldn't have had the ability to make any other star-grabbing trades afterwards. Furthermore, now that Chris Paul is FORBIDDEN to join the Lakers, that opens up the question for us: why couldn't our assets alone be enough to land him? Was Lamar Odom alone going to be enough for New Orleans to break the deal to ship out Chris Paul? That's bull****. I hate giving up Lowry like anyone else, but **** Chris Paul is an "in" to getting Dwight Howard. If we have a chance to get him for ourselves now, I say we should do it. Swap Martin for Lowry on the deal, see if New Orleans can't find anything better now and maybe they accept with Dell Demps knowing for damn sure that he is simply a puppet GM, not a real one. One thing that scares me that ya'll have been saying is that the NBA has put in some rule changes to nerf Kevin Martin, namely on foul-drawing from jumping into a player and such. I don't know about the specifics but it does scare me that Morey who was so reluctant to part with Martin before now would release him so easily especially after we're acquiring a big man to pair him with. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I say trade Lowry, Scola, Dragic, Morris, and the pick for CP3, then call his bluff this summer. We should have the cap space to sign both him and Dwight Howard. When you consider taxes here and taxes in LA, he'd be giving up a fortune to jump to LA as a free agent.
I agree. I think you take the chance at getting Paul and enticing Dwight to sign here next year. At worst, Paul leaves, but that at least leaves us with an immense cap room to work with in the future and sets us up for getting a great player in the draft. How this team stands right now is the absolute worst place you can be, stuck as a fringe playoff team.
Why can't we trade for Paul? They want all of our players anyway.... Martin Scola 2012 first round pick They were only getting Odom from LA - give them their choice of Patterson, Hill, Morris instead - they aren't as good, but much younger.
He will not sign. The guy is ready to take legal action against the NBA because he can't get his way and go to L.A
Mostly because he doesn't want to come here. The fact that he's going out of his way to try and get this trade to go through could only mean that he's going to LA no matter what.
and to answer your question we cant trade for chris paul right now cause trade hasnt officially been broken...or maybe it has
Well if Pau won't come here I'd pull the plug if I were Morey anyway. I'm getting sick of these players dictating where they go and pitching a fit if they don't get their way. It's getting old.
If Morey trades for Paul and he leaves after one year he should be fired on the spot. Thats the most dip**** idea I have ever heard on this board and thats saying something.
the owners vetoed the idea of the hornets trading paul to anyone, not just the lakers. the hornets are already losing money that the other owners have to pay for in order to keep the hornets from folding. trading paul will mean the hornets will lose more money, which in turn costs all other owners more money. since the nba owns the hornets, the owners all have some pull. he will be a hornet for the rest of the season until he signs elsewhere next summer. if we want a chance at him, i would suggest clearing cap space for 2 max contracts and creating a situation where he can team with dwight. they may not have that option anywhere else.
I think it can work out. But unless there's a 3rd team involved, the CP3/Lowry thing will be a problem. It seems that NO prefers Martin over Lowry, so Lowry has to be traded for someone or he'll have no trade value once the deal is done. IMO the LA issue isn't a big deal. Mainly because LA won't have capspace next offseason. With NY out of the picture too, the only "major market" team with capspace to sign CP3 next year is Boston. And perhaps NJ but they have DWill issues too. Overall, I am at least glad we have the players NO wants for CP3 if we want him. But he doesn't fit the team as well as Gasol does in filling a hole.
And Boston has done many of these trades, you say? Over the past twenty years, the Celtics have made the playoffs 10 times and won the title ONCE. Clearly the NBA must be rigged to make them win
