The Chris Paul Saga is finally over.
After a year of speculation, the New Orleans Hornets shipped Paul and a pair of second-round picks to the Los Angeles Clippers for shooting guard Eric Gordon, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, centre Chris Kaman and the Minnesota Timberwolves first-round pick in the 2012 draft.
A week ago, it looked as though Paul was headed for Los Angeles’ other team, the Lakers, however NBA commissioner David Stern nixed that deal and caused quite the kerfuffle. Many pundits said that the Hornets would never do better and that the commish was overextending his reach by putting the kibosh on the deal but upon closer examination, he made the right call.
The Hornets would have received Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, and a first-round draft choice in that exchange for Paul in that deal, but when you factor in the players’ ages and the quality of the draft pick, the Hornets came out ahead by waiting.
The Hornets and Clippers also came out ahead by getting the deal done now rather than waiting.
The Clippers can now allow their team to gel more quickly, which promises to be a big challenge in this lockout-shortened season. And had the Hornets let this wait until the trade deadline, injuries and other signings may have made it more difficult to get a deal done. With a harder salary cap and the NBA’s complex trade rules, it is very hard to pull off a trade of this magnitude.
It is also very hard to get this much quality back for a superstar player.
“With this trade, we now have three additional players who were among the top eight draft picks in their respective drafts as well as our own first-round pick and (another) first-round pick,” Hornets GM Dell Demps said. “Aminu is a young talent with a bright future, Gordon is a big-time scorer and one of the best (shooting) guards in the league and Kaman is a proven centre and former all-star.”
Gordon is an emerging star in his own right who averaged 22.3 points per game a year ago. The third-year guard’s only downside is that he has yet to play a full 82-game schedule, maxing out at 78 games in his rookie season while only suiting up for 56 games a year ago.
Two seasons ago, Kaman averaged 18.5 points per game and 9.3 rebounds per game; however, last season his totals dropped as he was injured for much of the season. He was expendable for the Clippers with the emergence of DeAndre Jordan and may prove to be expendable for the Hornets as well since his contract expires at season’s end. That will give the Hornets some salary flexibility going forward. Kaman is a hard-working centre who made the most of his talents during his eight seasons in La-La Land.
Aminu and the draft choice are nice building blocks for New Orleans. Scouts love Aminu’s potential while the draft pick is the Timberwolves which promises to be a lottery pick in a potentially loaded draft unless Ricky Rubio is the saviour in the Land of a Thousand Lakes and the T’Wolves are the NBA’s surprise team. A big if indeed.
As for the Clippers, the team can now build around Paul and emerging superstar Blake Griffin and will now attempt to finally emerge from the shadow of their older brother, the Lakers.
There have been years that the franchise showed promise but the franchise always seemed to be snake-bitten. The injuries that derailed the promising careers of Danny Manning and Shaun Livingston being two major examples. (Both had long NBA careers but were never the same after the injuries.)
The Blake Show only promises to get more exciting with the addition of Paul. They will need to find a couple of more pieces to place around the two before they can become a contender but they promise to be a terrific pairing.
There are a couple of notes of caution before we anoint them contenders. Paul is missing his left meniscus and Griffin his left patella; considering the franchise’s history, these are two big notes of caution.
Both are also still set to become free agents following the 2013 season. Griffin seems very happy in L.A. and has embraced his role as the face of the franchise nicely, but two years is a long time.
All-in-all, it was a mighty fine haul for the Hornets and now we can turn our attention to the Dwight Howard saga.