Lakers Rumors: Los Angeles Still Wants to Make Futile Attempt to Land Chris Paul

The Los Angeles Lakers' first attempt to acquire New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul ended in disaster, as NBA commissioner David Stern stepped in and mercilessly executed the deal.

As such, you would think that the Lakers learned their lesson about pursuing CP3. 

But nope. According to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, the Lakers are still interested:

Sigh. Must we go through all this again?

Apparently, and I guess that's not very surprising. Shoot, just yesterday, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said (via ESPNLosAngeles.com) that the Lakers were still pursuing "big deals." A trade for CP3 would definitely make the grade in that regard.

That Pau Gasol would be leaving the Lakers also isn't much of a surprise. He was one of the key players involved in the three-team trade the Lakers had worked out with the Hornets and Houston Rockets last week (see Yahoo! Sports' breakdown), and he has arguably more trade value than any player on the Lakers. To get value, you must give up value.

But like Stein noted, the Lakers can't do a simple two-team deal. The writing is on the wall that any trade for Paul must set the Hornets up well for the future, and the Lakers don't have the pieces to assure that.

At least, not compared to a team like the Los Angeles Clippers, who are kinda-sorta-not-really still involved in talks to acquire Paul for themselves (see ESPN.com). But despite the fact they have very good pieces to give up, no deal has been able to get done.

So given the circumstances, what should we make of the Lakers' renewed/surviving interest in CP3?

In a word, nothing. The first deal the Lakers had in place was plenty good enough, and Stern blocked it. I for one have a hard time seeing how the Lakers would top that deal, and even then, I'm not sure Stern would allow Paul to go to the Lakers.

Because of, you know, "basketball reasons."