One of the biggest what ifs in NBA history is the vetoed trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers to team with Kobe Bryant in 2011. Much has been said about what happened and Paul himself recently revealed that he and Bryant even spoke prior to the league vetoing the deal.
“It was very, very wild to say the least,” Paul said during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “It was crazy times, our team at the time was owned by the league. The league owned our team. We had just came out of CBA negotiations. It’s a lot of stories that’s been out there now where people say this is what happened. I remember where I was.
“Me and Kobe had actually got on the phone and talked that night and then it was basically like a little shit storm from there. It was a crazy time and just knowing the emotional roller coaster that it was at the time was really different. But I got the phone call basically that this trade ain’t happening no more.”
The fact that Paul and Bryant spoke immediately after the deal was announced just shows how excited and ready they were to team together. But Paul also spoke about the CBA negotiations that had just taken place and how that affected things as well, along with the NBA owning the then-New Orleans Hornets.
“After sitting through all those CBA negotiations when we came out they wanted to…the whole point of that CBA negotiation was to make the league more balanced,” Paul noted. “And so I gotta go back and look at the letter that a few of the owners I guess sent in. But I guess when the trade happened a lot of the owners from other teams was like, ‘I guess that ain’t competitive balance.’ So because the team was owned by the league, all the different owners felt like, I think they had ownership of the team. It’s no go.”
The Lakers trading for another superstar just didn’t sit well with certain owners and with the league having unprecedented power over the Hornets at the time, they ultimately vetoed the deal and Paul would eventually wind up being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. There are plenty of other details too, and Paul says he plans on revealing everything at some point.
“It’s a whole lot of dynamics that went into it,” Paul added. “It wasn’t necessarily bitter to the league, it was a lot of stuff that took place. I’ma tell that story I promise you. I’ma tell every last detail of it one day. But what’s interesting enough is, you know who my agent was at that time? It was Leon Rose. So me and Leon was on the phone every single day. All night, all day trying to figure out what was gonna happen because there were a lot of implications that were in on that deal as far as my contract. Because in that new CBA we had put new parameters in where if you left not in a trade, you wouldn’t get as many years on your deal. So it was a lot that went into it.”
Obviously all sides moved on afterwards, though that day will still go down as one of the most surreal in the history of the league. And unfortunately all anyone can ever do now is wonder what could’ve been.
LeBron James: Chris Paul is one of the greatest point guards ever
Of course Paul recently retired after 21 years in the league and one of his closest friends, Lakers superstar LeBron James, gave him great praise as one of the best point guards to ever play the game.
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