NBA History: 8 Years Since The League Vetoed Chris Paul Trade

To keep it simple, the NBA owned the majority of the Hornets and felt like it wasn’t a good idea for the organization considering they were about to sell the team, and an awful team without a star would have resulted in them losing money.

Years later, Stern appeared on the Nunyo and Company podcast, and revealed the Lakers could have still completed the deal for Paul if the Lakers general manager at the time, Mitch Kupchak, would not have panicked.