It looks like we finally have our Chris Paul trade. I am a little hesitant since I have already written about two trades that didn't actually happen this week but this one looks like it's a done deal. Chris Paul is now on his way to the Clippers. Lets take a look at the deal.
Clippers get Chris Paul and 2nd round picks.
Hornets get Eric Gordon, T-wolves unprotected 1st rounder, Chris Kaman, and Al-Farouq Aminu
Chris Paul finally gets to LA and for the 1st time the Clippers get a super star to agree to play there. Paul agreed to pick up his player option for 2012-13 and now is guaranteed to be a Clipper for at least 2 years. The Clippers now have one of the most dynamic duos in the league with Paul and Griffin. The Clippers are now a very interesting team heading into this year and should make some noise in the playoffs. They should also make quite the rivalry between them and the Lakers in LA.
The Clippers now have 4 point guards on their roster with CP3, Baron Davis, Mo Williams and Eric Bledsoe. Not to mention they also have Randy Foye who is a combo guard. On the other side of that, they don't have much size after Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. They are going to need to swing a deal some time soon to pick up some size. I would expect that Mo Williams would be on his way out soon.
With the loss of their 2nd leading scorer in Gordon they are going to need to find their points somewhere. Randy Foye might take a lot of the minutes he leaves behind at shooting guard but I don't really know what you are going to get out of him at this point. In his 3rd season, Foye averaged 16 points per game with Minnesota and looked like he might be a rising star. Since though Foye's stats have only gone down and he is coming off a year where he shot 38% from the field. He was also only 54th among SGs in PER. I don't really know if he can be their SG but they don' really have any other options. LA hopes that new acquired Caron Butler will pick up for some of the scoring Gordon leaves behind.
Another player that will have a big impact on how far they can go is newly resigned DeAndre Jordan. Jordan just signed a huge 4 year 43 million deal but he hasn't really earned that to this point in his career. In 25 minutes per game, Jordan only averaged 7 points and 7 rebounds. Jordan was very good on defense last year but he needs to start adding some more on the offensive end to earn that money.
The Clippers are currently 7-1 to win the west, that makes them the 4th favorite. You may think that is kinda high but the West is looking much weaker than you might think. With The Lakers losing Odom, Dallas losing Chandler, Portland losing Roy, half of Denver's team stuck in China for half the year and San Antonio not getting any younger, it is not that crazy to think that the Clippers could be in the hunt. I think they have Memphis way too low at 14-1 and don't think the Clippers have a better shot than they do but they are still looking like one of the 5-6 best teams in the West. With this trade, the Clippers made themselves relevant for the 1st time in 30 years and for that this trade is a big win for them.
On the other side of this, New Orleans and the NBA finally get the kind of deal they were looking for. While the veto'd trade with the Lakers and Rockets got them plenty of quality players, most of those players were older and had multiple years left on their contracts. With this trade, The Hornets get one of the best young prospects in Gordon and the hopes of another star with Minnesota's 1st rounder. The way the NBA handled this was ugly and leaves the NBA with a black eye but at least it is over now.
The key player in the trade for New Orleans was Eric Gordon. Gordon had a breakout season last year and averaged over 22 points per game. He was 6th in the league in PER among SGs. At 22, Gordon is a great piece for the Hornets to build around. Gordon has true star talent and is one of the 2 best SGs under 30. It is a rare that a player that is this good and this young is even available. New Orleans is lucky that LA finally gave in and decided that they could part with Gordon. Gordon is by far the best player than has been thrown around in any of the Chris Paul rumors.
The key to this trade will be how good the Minnesota pick ends up being. This could end up being a steal for New Orleans. The 2012 draft is considered to be loaded and there is a very good chance this pick is in the top 5. Minnesota had the worst record in the league last year and I don't see them improving by that much this year. Vegas agrees with me since they currently have Minnesota at 125-1 to win the West. That puts them last. If the ping pong balls can bounce the right way, New Orleans should end up with 2 star players out of this deal.
The other 2 players in this deal could also be pretty good assets. Kaman has been banged up for a decent amount of his career but when he is healthy he has been a very good player. Just 2 years ago he averaged 18.5 points and 9.2 rebounds. With New Orleans in full rebuild mode, I would expect that they will try to trade him. Kaman has an expiring contract and should have some value on the trade market. Plus the worst thing the Hornets can do for their future is win now. Anything they can do to help their draft position get better they should do.
Al-Farouq Aminu was the 8th pick of the 2010 draft and showed some flashes last year that he might have a pretty good future. They should be able to give him plenty of playing time this year to see what type of talent he actually has. New Orleans shouldn't care about winning now and should let Aminu take his lumps so he can get some much needed experience.
It is really hard to say who won this trade because of how good Chris Paul can be but I think New Orleans got the better end of this one. Paul has had some knee problems of the past few years, so this is a fairly big risk for LA. LA also still has a lot of holes in their lineup and not a lot of cap space or draft picks to help fix that. I think LA made a move they had to make but I still think they could regret this one down the road. They have given up a lot of future assets over the past year and that could end up being a huge mistake. I wrote about the last time they traded a pick and hopefully for them this isn't as much of a disaster as that was. New Orleans got the best possible trade they could with this one and Hornets fans should be excited about the future. Hopefully for New Orleans they dont win a lot of games this year and their own pick can be somewhere in the top 7. That could give them a young big 3 to build around and set them up to be one of the better teams in the NBA come the 2013 season.
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