Chris Paul Trade Rumors: Did Dan Gilbert Save the Lakers from a Mistake?

Yesterday Chris Paul was almost a Laker. Almost. Dan Gilbert's second juvenile letter in as many summers prevented the trade from going through, and now the New Orleans Hornets' superstar point guard is left to be with the Hornets. 

In all honesty, even as a Chicago Bulls fan, I have to say that there was nothing wrong with the trade from Houston's end or the Hornets' end. The Houston Rockets would have secured Pau Gasol and added the flexibility in cap space they needed to offer Nene Hilario a max contract. That's a win for them. 

The Hornets would have added three players who could start for them, and in addition received a first-round draft pick, even if it was a low one. 

The irony is that if anyone "lost" in this deal it was the Los Angeles Lakers. There is no question that they received the best player of all in the deal, and in the trade they would have what could fairly be described as the best backcourt in NBA history. 

When you step back and consider the logistics of how they Lakers would have fit together as a team though, you'd be hard pressed to prove that the Lakers became a better team, at least for now.

The main reason there would be questions is that right now the Lakers' strength, apart from Kobe, is what they have in the middle. What they would have left is a brittle Andrew Bynum, Derrick Caracter and not much else. 

Should Bynum go down with injury yet again—something that's happened five out of six years of his career so far—the Lakers would really be in dire straights. 

It is possible that there was still hope from the Lakers that they were going to trade Bynum to the Orlando Magic for Dwight Howard, but that's a bit of a reach. Getting the Paul deal "done" left two of the major components for the potential Howard deal—Lamar Odom, and for him, the acquisition of Hedo Turkoglu's outrageous contract. 

So the Lakers would have been stuck with a great backcourt, a fragile center and no power forward to speak of. 

Additionally, while Paul and Bryant are individually great players, it's hard to see how well they would play together. They are both players who need the ball to be effective. Kobe Bryant needs it to create shots for himself. Paul needs it to create shots for others. 

Kobe Bryant is not a Ray Allen-type of shooting guard, who is best at creating shots away from the ball and is a brilliant catch-and-shoot player. He's effective there, but that's not his real game. It's just questionable as to how well the skill sets of the two players would compliment one another. 

Between the void left in the middle and the lack of complimentary styles in the backcourt, the Lakers would run the risk of being the Philadelphia Eagles of the NBA—a team with great players slapped together without regard for style, and with huge holes left unaccounted for. 

They could have been a "Dream Team" that turned nightmare. In an ironic twist of fate, Dan Gilbert may have saved the Lakers.