Could Chris Paul Push the Los Angeles Clippers All the Way to an NBA Title?

As the great sage Lil' Bow Wow once said, "My favorite play is the alley-oop."

Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are also purveyors of the 'oop, and they will hook up for ridiculous variations of the play for an unprecedented amount of times this season.

Paul's passing will also lead to even more dunks for Griffin, which will lead to more fans jumping out of their seats and plenty of SportsCenter time.

Exciting as it all will be, any form of dunk is unfortunately only worth two points a pop.

The Chris Paul trade saga ending, according to ESPN, is a grand success for everyone.

It saves the Hornets as a team by allowing them to get assets instead of holding Paul hostile as a sales chip for the entire team. It saves David Stern from extending an ugly blemish on his record into an early resignation. It gives the league essentially another major market team by giving the Clippers enough star power to become universally appealing. It will also help the Clippers exposure, appeal and will sell plenty of tickets.

But, from a "basketball reasons" standpoint, will it help the Clippers reach an NBA championship?

Long story short, yes.

However, two-year story Chris Paul Rental short, no.

The trade of a young asset in Al Farouq-Aminu, a big expiring contract and serviceable center in Chris Kaman, a proven star with still more upside in Eric Gordon and what could be a franchise player in the Timberwolves pick, would appear to be too much for even a superstar point guard.

To look at it from a trade machine standpoint, the Clippers are big losers in this deal. If the Hornets parlay that pick into, say, Anthony Davis, and he proves to be the next evolution of the mobile big in the NBA, the Clippers could have changed the game with their sheer athleticism. 

It's critical to not look at this trade in a short-term window, as strange as that might seem. On the surface, this looks like the Clippers mortgaging their long-term security for a shot at a championship. But, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are not going to beat the Heat, Bulls and would possibly even fall short against the Celtics or Magic.

A team cannot replace three offensive starters with one and expect to win it all. They can make a big run and charge into the playoffs, but the winners of the NBA finals have always been riddled with depth and skilled role players.

The Clippers do not have that.

What they have now is an elite point guard and an elite big, critical to a dominant team. Caron Butler, while old and coming off an injury, is the type of player predestined to be a scrappy and gritty championship role player. DeAndre Jordan is a promising young and athletic center.

Things get real dicey at the two spot, though.

Chauncey Billups could theoretically play shooting guard. So could Mo Williams or Eric Bledsoe. But, the first is too slow to guard the modern shooting guard, same with the second, and the third would make the Clippers dangerously short at the one and two.

They have nothing behind Butler, Griffin and Jordan. This is now a very promising top-heavy team instead of a balanced, growing and promising team.

What they do have, though, is the latitude to acquire the missing pieces.

They have cap space to make moves. They also have Mo Williams and Eric Bledsoe as trade chips.

Paul also brings the kind of legitimate star appeal to reel in players looking for a real shot at a title. Playing with Griffin was already a very appealing opportunity, but playing with Paul and Griffin borders on irresistible. 

So, no, acquiring Chris Paul does not push the Clippers over the hump and hand them the keys to the league.

What it does is push the Clippers right to the hump of serious contention with the tools to be pushed to either side of it based on the intelligence of moves made by their front office in the next year.

This will not be the end of the Clippers tinkering, but rather the momentous beginning.

It makes what Clippers fans have been secretly longing for, too afraid to shout publicly for fear of jinxing the whole affair, from the moment that Mike Dunleavy was rumored to be on the way out as head coach reality.

The Clippers are now built for the polar opposite of what has been their past culture of failure mingled with disappointment.

This was a trade made based on hope—a word that seemed to always be made only for the other Los Angeles team.

For a long period, the Clippers made moves that were limited by and undercut with a fear of disaster. Failure was predestined. 

Taking a home run swing at Paul is a move made with success in mind, for once.

The Clippers are finally refusing to let past failure bar them from future success. Maybe it will bring them the ultimate prize someday.

For now, though, it has legitimized what has been brewing in Los Angeles ever since the drafting of Blake Griffin.

It's now a proud thing to be a Clippers fan.