The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the biggest near-trades in NBA history: a deal for superstar point guard, Chris Paul.
The Los Angeles Lakers are unquestionably one of the greatest franchises in the history of professional sport. Yet even with sustained periods of greatness, the franchise still has some prominent “what-if’s” surrounding it, such as:
- Could Shaquille O’Neal have been the greatest player of all time if he had Kobe Bryant’s work ethic?
- Would my stress levels in my youth have been lower had the front office not wasted some of Kobe’s best years by surrounding him with starting lineup “talent” such as Chris Mihm and Smush Parker?
However, of all the “what if’s” that have plagued the Lakers over the years, I would argue that none of them haunts fans more than the vetoed Chris Paul trade of 2011.
For those Lakers fans out there who are a little younger or are unfamiliar, on 8 December 2011, the Lakers orchestrated a three-team trade with the New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets. The terms of the trade as per Bleacher Report were:
Los Angeles Lakers: PG Chris Paul (from NO Hornets).
New Orleans Hornets: F Lamar Odom (from LA Lakers), SG Kevin Martin (from HOU Rockets), PF Luis Scola (from HOU Rockets), PG Goran Dragic (from HOU Rockets).
Houston Rockets: PF Pau Gasol (from LA Lakers).
I remember jumping for joy at the thought of the best point guard in the league and (at the time) my favorite non-Lakers player joining forces with Kobe Bryant. However, there was an unprecedented twist set to occur. At the time of the trade, the NBA happened to own the New Orleans Hornets franchise, a move that was designed to ensure financial stability while they waited for a more permanent owner to take over.
This led to David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time, taking the unfathomable step of stepping in and vetoing the trade, infamously citing “basketball reasons” as the reason for this. What came next was nothing short of a tragedy for Laker Nation; not only was Chris Paul eventually shipped across the hall, but the Lakers have not won a title since that fateful day.
This begs the question: how good would the Lake Show have been with Chris Paul in his prime? For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume that as he did with the Clippers, Paul opts into the final year of his contract, giving him two full years as a Laker.
2011-12 Season:
2011-12 will forever be known as a lockout-shortened year and the year that LeBron James won his first-ever title with the Miami Heat, vanquishing the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games.
Meanwhile, the vetoed Chris Paul trade had ramifications for the Lakers beyond the obvious. Lamar Odom, coming off a sixth man of the year award and a key piece in the back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010, was reportedly hurt by his inclusion in the attempted deal.
The Los Angeles Lakers subsequently scrambled to have him moved, getting shipped off to the Dallas Mavericks for a protected first-round pick and a trade exception. The move was not looked at favorably in the locker room and elicited this quote from Kobe Bryant:
"“To be honest with you, I don’t like it. It’s tough to lose Lamar. Pau (Gasol) is still here, and we’re all thankful for that. It’s hard when you’ve been through so many battles with players to just see them go somewhere else. It’s tough.”"
2011-12 also happened to be the strongest year that Andrew Bynum ever had as a pro, making the All-NBA second team off the back of nearly 19 points, 12 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game.
Despite a strong roster led by the majority of the back-to-back title nucleus, point guard remained a gaping hole on the 2011-12 Los Angeles Lakers. Take a look at the wasteland at point guard that season.
The front office was so desperate to not have Steve Blake be their first-string point guard, they gave up a first-round pick as part of a package to acquire Ramon Sessions. Meanwhile, the two biggest rivals to the Lakers in the West, the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder, were starting Tony Parker and Russell Westbrook at the point guard position.
Most Lakers fans know how the rest of this story goes: a humiliating 4-1 loss at the hands of those same Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Semi-Finals.
Would Chris Paul have changed the Lakers’ fortunes that season? My gut instinct is yes. Two of the four losses were by less than one basket. Westbrook ran wild against Sessions and destroyed him all series. Meanwhile, 2012 was a year that CP3 made both the All-NBA first team and the All-NBA Defensive first team. Flip the result of those two games and you have a 3-2 series heading back to LA.
As good as the San Antonio Spurs were that season, I also firmly believe that in this alternative reality, the Los Angeles Lakers would have beaten them in the Western Conference Finals in 6 games.
While offensively strong, a Tony Parker/Manu Ginobili backcourt would struggle mightily against a Paul/Kobe tandem. Westbrook and a young James Harden caused some problems for the Spurs in their series, and it’s safe to say that they weren’t on the level of CP3 and Kobe.
Meanwhile, while it may sound like a laughable statement present day, Tim Duncan would have had his hands full with the 2012 version of Andrew Bynum.
Would the Lakers’ playoff run comes to an end at the hands of the LeBron-James led Miami Heat in the NBA Finals? Quite possibly. The 2012 Heat had one of the best defenses I’ve ever seen, with all five of their starters (Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, Shane Battier, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh) ranging from above-average to elite at that end of the floor.
Coupled with the firepower of their big three, LA would definitely have had their work cut out for them on both ends of the floor.
Breaking down some of the individual matchups Kobe and Wade likely play each other to a standstill, as would Bynum and Bosh. 32-year-old Metta World Peace would have done his best to slow down LeBron, but wouldn’t have been able to do enough to challenge him at the other end of the floor. If the Lakers were to win this series, it would likely be off the back of Chris Paul, who would’ve presented by far the biggest mismatch for the Heat at both ends of the court.
Regardless of whether you think they would’ve won the title or not, it’s safe to say that having Chris Paul at point guard would have likely led to the Los Angeles Lakers advancing at least one round further in the playoffs, if not all the way to the deciding round.
2012-13 Season:
2012-2013 was a pivotal year in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers. Desperate to reclaim the success they’d had over the previous decade, the Lakers made a plethora of ill-fated trades that were the catalyst for seven straight losing seasons.
The one that was a direct consequence of what I’m now going to refer to as “veto-gate”, was a desperation move for 38-year-old Steve Nash.
Los Angeles Lakers: Steve Nash
Phoenix: A 2013 1st round draft pick (Nemanja Nedović was later selected), a 2013 2nd round draft pick (Alex Oriakhi was later selected), a 2014 2nd round draft pick (Johnny O’Bryant was later selected) and a 2018 1st round draft pick (Mikal Bridges was later selected).
The Suns organization has been amongst the worst run organizations in basketball for years, so they didn’t capitalize on all the draft capital that the Lakers provided them aside from the Mikal Bridges pick.
The other big trade was one that was set to shake the foundation of the NBA landscape, just not in the way that was expected. As per Basketball Reference:
"As part of a 4-team trade, the Los Angeles Lakers traded Andrew Bynum to the Philadelphia 76ers; the Los Angeles Lakers traded Christian Eyenga, Josh McRoberts and a 2017 2nd round draft pick (Wesley Iwundu was later selected) to the Orlando Magic; the Denver Nuggets traded Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, a 2013 2nd round draft pick (Romero Osby was later selected) and a 2014 1st round draft pick (Dario Šarić was later selected) to the Orlando Magic; the Orlando Magic traded Earl Clark, Chris Duhon and Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers; the Orlando Magic traded Jason Richardson to the Philadelphia 76ers; the Philadelphia 76ers traded Andre Iguodala to the Denver Nuggets; and the Philadelphia 76ers traded Maurice Harkless, Nikola Vučević and a 2018 1st round draft pick (Landry Shamet was later selected) to the Orlando Magic. (1st Round pick from PHI to ORL was eventually traded back to PHI. 1st-Rd pick from LAL to ORL turns into 2017 & 2018 2nd-Rd picks if Lakers 1st-Rd pick traded to PHO/PHI does not convey by 2017)"
Feeling overwhelmed just reading that? Me too. I had to bold any players, picks, and teams involved just to attempt to keep up with what happened. If there’s one key takeaway to make from that trade in 2020, it’s that you would have been laughed out of the room if you’d tried to argue that in a trade that contained both Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum, that Nikola Vucevic would be the best player from that point onwards.
Bynum had been elite the season prior and Howard was coming off an All-NBA First Team appearance. He also happened to be only one season removed from winning three consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards.
The franchise’s front office was getting desperate to return to championship contention after the failure of the previous season, appearing perfectly content with ridding themselves of any draft assets in order to orchestrate a swift return to NBA relevancy.
Looking back at old articles, expectations were sky-high for the 2012-13 Lakers. As per Hoops Habit:
"It was the perfect team, really. The starting lineup boasted a combined 33 All-Star appearances between them, and had the league’s highest payroll at just over $100 million. They were the media’s pick to win it all – the New York Times called them “one of the most talented lineups in NBA history” and ESPN declared that they “were not only expected to win the title but to do so in record-breaking fashion.”"
The reality was unfortunately very, very different. Mike Brown got fired after just five games and a 1-4 start to the season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of Mike Brown as a coach and believe that LeBron James has made him look far better than he is in reality. Yet even I can acknowledge that the decision appeared hasty, reactionary, and like a panic move.
The coach they replaced him with, Mike D’Antoni, was and still is famous in basketball circles for high-octane offense, pushing the pace and lots of three-point shooting. Although he’s admittedly a huge proponent of a pick-and-roll heavy offensive scheme, something that stood to benefit Steve Nash and Dwight Howard in particular, the type of offense he tried to install did not suit the pieces that he had.
The league’s oldest roster would’ve been better suited to a more deliberate, patient offense, like the Triangle. Instead, watching the offense attempt to gel that season felt like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Even the pick-and-roll didn’t work as effectively as expected, something that in the interest of fairness, I attribute to Howard’s back injury he was battling all year.
The team still managed to finish with the #9 ranked offense in the NBA that year, but that was more due to the sheer offensive talent on the roster rather than via a coherent offensive system.
To make matters worse, the Lakers got crushed by injuries throughout the season, destroying any chance that they had to build chemistry.
One interesting piece of trivia that I found while taking a trip down memory lane, is that the expected starting lineup only started 7 games together all year, going a horrible 0-7 in those games. Worst of all, Dwight Howard was said to have been a malcontent all year, even being reported to have had chemistry issues with Steve Nash.
If you’re new to being a Lakers fan, after reading the above you can probably guess how the season unfolded. They started the season 15-16, while across the hall, Chris Paul had led the Clippers to a 23-8 start.
Although the purple and gold steadied the ship as the season went on, the damage had already been done, finishing the regular season with a 45-37 record. Believe it or not, the playoffs were even more disappointing than the regular season was, as they were swept in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs.
So, would the addition of Chris Paul have led the 2012-13 Lakers past the Spurs in the playoffs? Honestly, probably not, unless in this alternate reality, Dwight Howard’s back was magically healthy. I firmly believe that San Antonio was the best team in the NBA that year, being incredibly unlucky to lose to the Heat in the finals.
However, if I were a betting man, I’d be confident in saying that if you substituted Paul into the team for Nash, the Lakers would’ve almost certainly avoided the Spurs in the first round. I could’ve had them ranked as high as the #3 seed, behind the aforementioned Spurs and the #1 seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
The #6 seed at the time was the Golden State Warriors, who while incredibly exciting to watch, hadn’t yet become one of the great NBA dynasties that they were destined to be.
Beyond:
I hear what some readers might be saying at this point. “The Los Angeles Lakers would’ve only been serious contenders for one year and even that wasn’t a lock. Why is this such a big deal?”
The reason that most hardcore Lakers fans are still resentful about veto-gate isn’t just because it denied Kobe Bryant the chance at equalling Michael Jordan’s six rings. With Dwight Howard in his prime, a few extra draft picks up their sleeve, and Mike D’Antoni at the helm, a coach that Chris Paul shared success with down the track in Houston, there’s no reason to expect that the Lakers couldn’t have enticed CP3 to re-sign a long-term deal.
It’s hard to project whether that would’ve led to any titles, but with how much of a hot-spot free agency destination the Lakers were at the time, it’s not exactly a stretch to say that the duo could’ve had a lot of success together for many years.
Instead, the reality was that after the 2012-13 season, a combination of a heavily aging roster, some awful contracts (looking at you Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng), and a lack of assets to facilitate rebuilding, led the Lakers to the worst stretch of years in franchise history. This stretch only came to an end this season and was one where the Lakers were tied for the worst record in the NBA over a six-year period.
As for the Clippers? Although they never made it to the Western Conference Finals, suffering from heartbreak after heartbreak while Chris Paul was tenured there, the rise of Lob City led to them being a respectable NBA franchise for the first time in their history.
As a Los Angeles Lakers fan, it’s unfortunate that this happened to coincide with a certain Kawhi Leonard’s playing career, because I hold a firm belief that the Clippers’ reputation as a well-run organization compared to the Lakers heavily influenced his decision to sign with them as a free agent last year.
Veto-gate robbed the wider basketball public of their chance to see two all-time greats together in the same back-court in Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. It robbed Kobe Bryant of a chance at a sixth title. It spurred the Lakers into making a series of panic moves that led the franchise to unprecedented mediocrity.
And, if you’re a believer in the phenomenon of “The Butterfly Effect“, you could argue that it indirectly led the best free-agent on the market straight into the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers this past offseason. All due to two words that will be firmly entrenched in the minds of Los Angeles Lakers fans for a long, long time: “Basketball Reasons”.