Chris Paul Trade: Why Clippers' Deal for CP3 Trumps Lakers' Failed Deal

There must have been at least five or six different occasions during the last week in which it seemed like there was no hope of Chris Paul being traded.

As such, you have to hand it to the Los Angeles Clippers. They wouldn't quit, and they were able to get a deal done on Wednesday night. As first reported by ESPN.com's Marc Stein, the Clippers sent Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and Minnesota's unprotected 2012 first-round draft pick to the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for CP3 and a pair of future second-round draft picks.

It's a good deal for both teams. The Clippers now have a second superstar to pair with Blake Griffin, and the Hornets have a young star they can build around in Gordon and three other assets that all have value.

Yet the question must be asked: Did the Hornets make out better trading with the Clippers than they would have if they had struck a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers?

As you'll recall, the Lakers had a deal in place with the Hornets and Houston Rockets that would have netted them CP3. Per Yahoo! Sports, the Rockets would have gotten Pau Gasol, and the Hornets would have gotten Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and Luis Scola, as well as a 2012 first-round pick the Rockets obtained from the New York Knicks.

It was a good deal for the Hornets, one that commissioner David Stern should not have killed. 

But it wasn't a better deal than the one the Hornets made with the Clippers. The Lakers-Rockets deal would have set the Hornets up just fine for the immediate future, but the Clippers deal set the Hornets up for the distant future.

The beauty of the Clippers deal is that they are getting both a budding young star in Eric Gordon, who is not yet 23, and a pretty good prospect in Al-Farouq Aminu. If they develop, Gordon will be an All-Star shooting guard in no time, and Aminu will be a serviceable power forward. In those two players alone, the Hornets have a good core. 

As for Kaman, maybe he'll revert back to his All-Star self this season. If not, his $12.2 million expiring contract will give the Hornets plenty of wiggle room next offseason.

The draft pick the Hornets are getting is the big chip, though. It's a lock to be a lottery pick, and it could be a top five pick if the Timberwolves play as poorly as they usually play. That means the Hornets will have a shot at some of the top-flight talent that will be entering the league in 2012.

To boot, the Hornets probably aren't making the playoffs this season. That means they'll have two lottery picks. Epic win.

This is what makes the Clippers deal so much better for the Hornets than the Lakers deal. Oddly enough, the pieces the Hornets would have gotten would have made them a pretty good team, one that could have snuck into the Western Conference playoffs this season.

And that draft pick that the Hornets got from the Knicks via the Rockets? No way that would have been a lottery pick.

It gets worse. Of the four players the Hornets would have gotten, two are over 30, one is pushing 30 and the other is a young guy who's not a star.

The problem: Very little upside.

So, oddly enough, despite all our complaining, David Stern actually did the Hornets a favor by killing the trade they had hammered out with the Lakers and Rockets.

That doesn't mean anybody should forgive Stern, mind you. But hey, all's well that ends well.