NBA Trade Rumors: Will Chris Paul Become a LeBron-Like Villain for Wanting Out?

Chris Paul is playing a dangerous game when he takes litigation up with the NBA for collusion. Yes, right now public sympathy is on his side, but public sympathy and media support are finicky things. They can turn around on you quicker than you can blink, and if Paul isn't careful, he could end up on the wrong side of the pointed pen.

If you need any evidence, look no further than LeBron James, who one day was one of the most popular basketball players in the world, and within 48 hours of announcing that he would reveal his decision of where to play on a national TV event for charity, he became the biggest villain in the NBA. 

The media can dog-pile like nobody's business. In order to get to the top of the story, each writer needs to outdo the last, be more condemning, be even more scathing in his or her criticism, regardless of how far removed the critique gets from the actual offense. We live in a world where hosting a multimillion dollar charity can be skewed as outright malevolence. 

Paul, according to ESPN's Ian O'Conner, would consider bringing a lawsuit should he not be traded. 

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'If Chris Paul doesn't get traded,' said one source close to the Paul talks, 'and if he ends up losing $30 million or $40 million in free agency because he wants to sign with someone else, I think he might have the biggest lawsuit the league has ever seen.'

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So don't be surprised if on a whim, the wind changes direction the moment that Paul files a lawsuit and the media, which is currently smashing David Stern—he who was once upheld has the best commissioner in sports—suddenly rises to his defense. 

Beyond that there's a low likelihood that Paul would actually have a case. The NBA owners are the owners of the Charlotte Hornets, and while you can argue that they were wearing two hats at the same time, it's one thing to argue it and another to prove it in court. 

Collusion means that two or more parties defraud someone of their legal right, and Paul had no legal right to be traded. Technically speaking, if a party was wronged here by virtue of collusion, it was the franchise, not Paul. 

There's a delicate difference between a desire to be traded and a right to be traded, and if Paul starts pushing that distinction, then it could throw a serious wrench in the works. 

Where do you draw the line? If Howard is able to persuade one of the three teams that he is interested in, are the Magic obligated to trade him? What if all kinds of experts agree it's reasonable?

It's not whether some, or even the majority of people, think that the deal is reasonable that is the deciding factor. It's whether or not the ownership of the team wants to do it. Like it or not, Dell Demps was just a GM, and the ownership didn't want the trade. 

Again, there's a predictable host of comments about what people think and what people can legally prove. And even then, there's the issue who was actually, legally, wronged. 

In short, this could easily turn into a long, ugly, legal mess, and the media hates those. 

And what of the fallout? There's already a bit of annoyance with the prima donna, "I-deserve-to-play-with-other-stars-on-premiere-franchises" kind of attitude. How many more players "ask" to be traded before the tide starts to turn?

Right now the media sentiment tends to be the players are just doing their teams a favor, but let's be clear. They do themselves a favor as well. If Paul gets traded, he gets that extra $30-40 million where he wants to be traded to.

The Horents are perfectly within their rights to not trade Paul, call his bluff and say, "OK, you said the money doesn't matter, prove it. You either get the money or you go where you want, but you don't get both."

At what point does a team do this? Players are always saying it's not about the money, but then they always want the money (with the ironic exception of LeBron James and company).

There's a point of tipping the scales. Chris Paul is on the right side of the media swarm now, but one misstep could swing everything around. He better tread lightly or else he might tip them.