Chris Paul Trade: Pros and Cons of the Blockbuster Deal Between Clippers-Hornets

The Chris Paul trade has shaken up the NBA landscape in a major way. The Clippers are making national headlines for the first time in their franchise's history, while the Hornets are saying goodbye to the best player in their franchise's history, 

There are pros and cons to this trade for all parties involved. Let's look at each of them in turn.

First off, the NBA, and in particular, David Stern. Obviously, the con is that the commissioner's image, already tarnished by the lockout, has been practically emasculated. Stern comes off looking petty and vindictive after vetoing several trade proposals.

In effect, he had Hornets GM Dell Demps publicly neutered, and ruined the team chemistry of the Lakers (and probably the Rockets too) by turning down a perfectly legitimate trade. 

Even if Stern refused to let Paul go to the Lakers to appease his small-market constituency, he still ended up letting them down by allowing Paul to wind up in Los Angeles anyways, a market so big it's the only one that supports two professional basketball teams (at least until the Nets officially move to Brooklyn).

There is, however, one positive that David Stern can cling to in the midst this PR tornado for the league. The biggest reason everyone was calling for Stern's head last week was not so much the fact that he vetoed the proposed three-team deal that would have sent Paul to the Lakers, nor that it seemed like he was trying to manipulate where exactly Paul would land.

The thing that had the media and fans most riled up was the reason he gave for blocking the trade.

NBA spokesman Mike Bass claimed that the league office nixed the deal for "basketball reasons." Initial reactions to that statement labeled the claim absurd and ridiculous because there was no way the Hornets would get a better deal.

As it turns out, they did just that. Stern talked the talk, and backed it up by walking the walk. He better hope that people notice.

The pros and cons for the Hornets are pretty clear.

On the bright side, the Hornets got a great haul for Paul. Chris Kaman will help New Orleans remain competitive this year, and help even more after this year when his $12.2 million contract comes off the books.

Al-Farouq Aminu has the potential to be an upgrade over Trevor Ariza at a fraction of the cost. He's just going into the second year of his rookie contract, so the team will have control over him for at least the next three seasons. Plus, the kid just turned 21.

The Hornets also landed a coveted first round draft pick in 2012 (originally belonging to Minnesota). With a star-studded draft class projected for 2012, that pick could land New Orleans their next franchise player if they get lucky with the lottery balls.

As bad as the Timberwolves have looked post-KG, the Hornets can actually feel good about their chances in that respect. 

The biggest prize the Hornets netted in this deal though is Eric Gordon. I've written at length about my love for Gordon before, so I won't repeat myself too much here.

While I don't quite see Gordon as a franchise player, he's still a cornerstone piece who would be one of the best No. 2 guys on any team in the league.

If New Orleans can get Gordon to sign an extension, they'll have locked up the league's premier young shooting guard and one of just a handful of reliable crunch time perimeter go-to guys.

Three excellent building blocks and cap relief is about as fair a deal as you can get for a franchise superduperstar like Chris Paul. The downside, as obvious as it sounds, is that you are still losing a franchise superduperstar. The effect of losing Chris Paul is immeasurable to the Hornets.

On the basketball court, New Orleans no longer has the best point guard in the league running their offense with an efficiency that a team with such limited talent has no right to operate with. But the bigger impact to the Hornets franchise may be off the court.

Eric Gordon is awesome, but I doubt the people of New Orleans know just how awesome he is. To the average fan there, he's just an undersized shooting guard who put up decent stats on a terrible team. Even though Gordon is a future All-Star fixture, he's definitely not going to put people in the seats the way Chris Paul did in his six seasons with the club.

That may make the task of finding an owner for the Hornets even more difficult for the NBA. After the Chris Paul trade controversy we just witnessed, the league needs to cede control to an owner quickly. Will they find someone willing to throw down hundreds of millions for a team that just lost the face of its franchise?

The pros and cons for the Clippers intrigue me the most.

A good rule for making roster moves in the NBA is that whenever you can turn your change into dollar bills, you do it without thinking twice. And Chris Paul, the best point guard on the planet and one of its five best basketball players, is most certainly a dollar bill.

No one runs an offense better than Paul, especially with the game on the line, when most offenses sputter and dissolve into one player going into hero mode (just ask Henry Abbott). 

The prospect of Chris Paul feeding the NBA's finest finisher in Blake Griffin is enough to make any basketball fan salivate. Griffin benefits the most from this trade. His meteoric rise will continue as he links up with the league's top floor general.

Also, remember that Paul resurrected Tyson Chandler's career. He can lead DeAndre Jordan (aka Tyson Chandler 2.0) down that same path.

What makes this trade a risk for the Clippers is that the change they sent to New Orleans adds up to significantly more than one dollar.

Eric Gordon himself is a silver dollar (not quite a bill but he could get there one day). Minnesota's 2012 first-rounder is a 50-cent piece (with dollar bill upside given the loaded draft class), Aminu is a quarter (with 50-cent piece upside), and Kaman is a dime. 

Tally up both sides and the Clippers are trading $1.85 in coins (but with upside to turn into $2.60 and two paper bills) for a $1 bill. A $1 bill who's barely six feet tall and has a bad knee at that.

Looking at the long-term ramifications of this trade, the Clippers are actually taking a significant risk, even though they're getting a bona-fide superduperstar and the best player in the deal hands down.

That risk could pay off with large short-term reward, though. Paul instantly makes everyone around him better. In Griffin's case, that's downright frightening, but when you add new acquisitions Caron Butler and Chauncey Billups to the mix, the Clippers have the upside to be extremely potent offensively.

With four quality point guards currently on the roster (temporary con), trading away Mo Williams for depth at another position is the next logical move for L.A. That can quickly turn into a pro if they can acquire an additional quality role player to bolster them at the 2, 4, or 5 positions.

In addition, we're looking at the weakest Western Conference in recent memory. The Mavericks have lost key players from their championship squad. The Lakers are seemingly falling apart with no plan in place to right the ship.

The Spurs have aged another year and face a brutally cramped regular season schedule. The Grizzlies kept their core intact, but they rose to prominence without their franchise player Rudy Gay. With him back in the lineup, how will that affect the equation in Memphis?

Oklahoma City probably goes into the season as prohibitive favorites to win the conference, but they added nothing to their roster and we're still wondering if the Durant-Westbrook dilemma that developed in last season's playoffs can be resolved.

With all the turmoil in the West, is it inconceivable that a team trotting out a starting lineup of Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups, Caron Butler, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan can make a run to the Finals? Think about that lineup for a second. It features four current or former All-Stars and two of the 10 best players in the entire league! (According to ESPN's NBA Rank.)

I know there are several new pieces to put in place with virtually no offseason, but professional leaders like Paul and Billups will smooth out the transition. The Clippers are set up as well as any team can hope to be to contend for a championship for the next 3-4 years.

If their goal is to win now (strange as it seems to think of the Clippers actually having that goal), this trade puts them in position to do just that.

On a personal level, I'm saddened that the young nucleus the Clippers had shrewdly put together never got a chance to grow organically into a powerhouse contender for the next decade.

But as we have learned over the past several months, the NBA is a business, and this trade, with all of its nuanced risks, is just another manifestation of that simple underlying truth.