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

“In fact, in the course of the weekend, we thought we could re-do the deal. We really thought that Houston would be ready to part with Kevin Lowry, and we had a trade lined up for Odom that would have gotten us a good first-round draft pick – not we, but my basketball folks.

But Mitch Kupchak at the time panicked and moved Odom to Dallas. So the piece wasn’t even there for us to play with at the time. So that was it — just about what was good for the then-New Orleans Hornets.”

It is too easy for Stern to blame Kupchak. Trading Lamar Odom to the Dallas Mavericks was more reasonable for the Lakers than to sit around and wait for David Stern and the Houston Rockets to make another deal possible.

Paul was eventually still traded to Los Angeles, but not the team in purple and gold. Paul became a member of the Los Angeles Clippers to pair up with one of the league’s best “big men” in Blake Griffin.