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Chris Paul Was Angry When His Lakers Trade Got Vetoed, Because He Had Already Talked To Kobe Bryant
On December 8, 2011, a trade that would have made Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant teammates, was vetoed by then NBA Commissioner David Stern.
The Lakers had agreed to a three-team trade with the New Orleans Hornets and Houston Rockets that would have resulted in Chris Paul being a Laker. But 45 minutes after the teams reached an agreement, Stern vetoed the trade for, and I quote, basketball reasons.
Stern had the authority to veto the deal because back then, the Hornets were without a team owner and were owned by the league. Simply explained; the league owned the majority of the Hornets, and felt like it wasn’t a good deal for the Hornets. They also were about to sell the team, and a terrible team without a star, would have resulted in losing money.
This veto definitely was league changing – a possible backcourt duo consisting of Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant remains one of the greatest ‘what ifs’ in recent NBA history.
During an appearance on Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles’ ‘Knuckleheads’ podcast, Chris Paul now shared some insight on what his 45 minutes as a Lakers player was like, while revealing that he had already talked to Bryant during that short time frame.
“I was on the phone with my brother and my agent, and all that. We figuring out a plane to get to New Orleans to get us to LA … let’s just say my agent clicked over, said hold on, clicked over and then he came back on and he was like, stuttering. And we was hot. We was hot. Me and Kobe had talked, you know what I’m saying? We had talked already and all that. And it was a lot. It was a lot.”
