Ross Pickering's Blog

• Posted by Ross Pickering December 14, 2011 - Filed in NBA - #David Stern  #Chris Paul  #Kevin Love  #lakers  #timberwolves  #hornets  #pau gasol 

  

  The amount of times Chris Paul has probably thought he's moving to Los Angeles within the last week and then being told that yet another deal has "fallen through" are mounting up. This is getting pretty ridiculous.

  
  
  

  David Stern and his apparent ego trip of "blocking" trades is becoming almost comical now, with teams, players and fans growing increasingly more annoyed at his actions every day; this isn't exactly how you want to come out of a lockout.

  
  
  

  However, to defend Stern - and I can't believe I'm about to do this - he's saying that a potential buyer for the league owned New Orleans Hornets needs to see that the team will be competitive in the long run, and so such deals as Lamar Odom, Luis Scola and Kevin Martin to the Hornets have been shot down (even though you'd think the team would be fairly competitive?) as well as the recent Clippers deal involving players Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu, Eric Bledsoe, Chris Kaman and Minnesota's unprotected 2012 first-round draft pick. However, it is unclear just exactly which pieces the Clippers offered for Paul.

  
  
  

  Whilst the Clippers have hit a bit of a road block in the deal - with not wanting to part with so many of their assets and them wanting to send Mo Williams to New Orleans for Trevor Ariza, reportedly - an opportunity for the Lakers to get back in the game is apparently on the cards.

  
  
  

  At the end of last season, an apparent deal between the Minneosta Timberwolves and Lakers was being put together; Pau Gasol for Kevin Love and possibly their lottery pick in the 2011 draft. Some people doubted whether this deal was true - surely the Lakers wouldn't trade Pau Gasol would they?! Well, poker player Jerry Buss' cards have well and truly been shown within the last week, and it seems that Gasol is actually being shopped around the league. 

  
  
  

  So, how about revisiting a modified version of that trade with the main focus still being on a Pau-Love swap? A quick trade I tried out on the ESPN Trade Machine went through...but would it satisfy David Stern? Here it is anyway; the Lakers send Pau Gasol to the Timberwolves and receive Chris Paul and Jarrett Jack (using Sasha Vujacic's Trade Exception) from the Hornets. The Hornets get Kevin Love, Wesley Johnson and Darko Milicic. The Timberwolves get Pau Gasol. The Lakers would also probably have to include some of their youth/picks in the deal and maybe the Wolves would add some different youth to the deal along with Love; but it works.

  
  
  

  LA finally get Chris Paul. The Timberwolves get a friend of Ricky Rubio's in Gasol and an All-Star friend at that - don't forget, they'd still have Michael Beasley and their other youthful prospects. And the Hornets? They'd get a young stud in Kevin Love who's only 23 and is coming off his best season, with a few other pieces for the future in the form of young talent and picks, as well as shedding the remaining $10 million owed to Jarrett Jack by trading him into the Lakers' Vujacic exception (which expires on Dec 15, by the way). It also means they get to keep Trevor Ariza, instead of trade him away like the Clippers have in mind.

  
  
  

  Sure, David Stern could once again shoot down this trade proposal. But with Chris Paul threatening legal action soon, it might be just about time that he changed his decision a week later and finally allowed CP3 to wear purple and gold.

  
  
  

  Ross Pickering is an NBA fan and writer from England. He can be contacted via Twitter.