Lakers Rumors: Clippers' Acquisition of Chris Paul a Slap to Lakers' Face

Chris Paul will be playing basketball in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future, but not for the Lakers. The New Orleans Hornets traded CP3 to the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.

Not surprisingly, that has people in Laker Land feeling pretty miffed.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, a person familiar with the Lakers' front office has it on good authority that members of the team's brass were "privately fuming" after the Clippers made their deal for CP3. 

Which makes sense. Shoot, it's been less than a week since they thought they had a deal to acquire CP3, only to have it squashed by NBA commissioner and pseudo-Hornets-owner David Stern.

It was at that point that the phrase "basketball reasons" became a kind of underground internet meme, as that was the reason Stern and the league gave for squashing the trade.

And what does Stern have to say about the trade he just allowed?

"It is our belief that the proposed transaction we have tonight is a very good transaction and better transaction than the one on which I did not sign off four business days ago," Stern said, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein. "I knew that we were doing the best thing for New Orleans, that was my job."

Translation: Yeah, I knew what I was doing. So back off.

Stern has a legit point about the Clippers' deal for Paul being better than the one the Lakers were going to make for him, in which case the ends justify the means.

But not as far as the Lakers are concerned. They're not seeing a fair deal. They're seeing robbery. Paul should have been theirs.

Stern has a legit point, but the Lakers have a legit gripe. They put a lot of time and effort into coming up with a deal for CP3, and the Hornets and the Houston Rockets were ready to execute it. All three teams would have benefited from the deal—especially the Hornets.

In fact, the deal that was on the table was pretty lopsided in favor of the Hornets. Even after acquiring Paul, the Lakers were going to have work to do. They weren't necessarily a better basketball team at that point.

But Stern, with a little help from an email from Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, squashed it because the deal was bad for business.

Or "basketball reasons." Whatever.

With Paul now off the table, the Lakers are pretty much out of options when it comes to making a trade. The other thing that happened on Wednesday was the Orlando Magic pulling Dwight Howard off the trading block (see Yahoo! Sports), leaving it totally devoid of marquee players.

So by denying the Lakers of Paul, Stern effectively threw the Lakers under the bus, albeit indirectly. Indications were that he didn't want to make them better, and now they're worse.

Given the circumstances, "privately fuming" is probably putting it a little lightly. The true version is probably more along the lines of "privately destroying furniture and shouting obscenities."

If so, they better be careful. They don't want to mess Chris Paul's new home up too badly.