NBA Trade Rumors: Hornets Will Move Chris Paul to Clippers out of Necessity

Don't burn your (too-) hastily-assembled "Welcome to LA, CP3" signs just yet, Clippers fans.

As reluctant as NBA commissioner David Stern has been to let New Orleans Hornets GM Dell Demps trade away Chris Paul for anything less than a king's ransom, he'll ultimately have no choice but to accept whatever package Clippers GM Neil Olshey offers, whether it includes up-and-comer Eric Gordon or not.

The Clips seemed to have CP3 signed, sealed and delivered to LaLa Land late Sunday night, with All-Star center Chris Kaman, promising sophomores Al-Farouq Aminu and Eric Bledsoe and Minnesota's first-round pick in the 2012 NBA Draft headed back to the Bayou.

However, at the behest of Stern's cronies at the league office, Demps pushed for Gordon, a demand at which Olshey balked. The Clippers were unwilling to part with EJ AND the Timberwolves' precious pick, though that didn't keep the NBA's higher-ups from getting greedy.

Even though 1) the package offered was almost exactly what the league had been looking for (young players, draft picks and financial relief), and 2) the Hornets had no leverage. Those that the NBA hadn't already frustrated in direct negotiations for Paul were scared off when Stern essentially vetoed the blockbuster deal that would've landed CP3 with the Lakers last week.

In essence, the Clippers were the last team in The Association that had the pieces and the willingness to make a deal and with whom Paul would stay for at least two years.

And the Clippers still are that last and only team, even after the previously proposed deal fell apart. ESPN's Marc Stein and Chris Broussard were the first to report that talks to bring CP3 to LA are not, in fact, dead:

Which, of course, makes sense. At this point, the Clips and the Hornets are practically made for each other, for better or worse. Both teams have terrible owners (Donald Sterling and Stern) and, now that Chauncey Billups is set to play in LA, the league has every incentive to get a deal done before it loses every last shred of leverage. 

Otherwise, when the summer of 2012 rolls around, CP3 will be gone, leaving the Hornets with little more than a cavern of cap space and nary a scrap to build around or attract a new owner with.

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