Los Angeles Lakers: 5 biggest ‘what-ifs’ of the last 25 years

1. What if the Chris Paul trade had gone through in 2011?

Speaking of the Hornets, that franchise — well, the New Orleans version of that franchise — almost handed the Los Angeles Lakers another future Hall of Famer in 2011, when a proposed trade that would’ve sent superstar point guard Chris Paul to L.A. was vetoed by the NBA under strange circumstances that to this day still produce cries of a conspiracy.

After winning back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010, the Lakers were embarrassingly swept out of the playoffs in 2011 by the Dallas Mavericks.

The team’s core group, including Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, were on the other side of 30 years old. Some re-tooling and a fresh shot in the arm seemed necessary for the Lakers to return to title-contender status.

While the NBA endured a lockout that bled into the scheduled start of the 2011-12 season and was ultimately resolved in time to create a 66-game schedule, in December the Lakers finalized a three-team trade: Gasol to the Rockets; Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, Luis Scola and a draft pick to the Hornets; and Paul to the Lakers.

Paul, 26 years old at the time, was arguably the best pure point guard in the league. In the 2010-11 season he’d earned All-NBA and All-Defensive Team nods, leading the league in steals and finishing fourth in assists. A backcourt of “CP3” and Kobe was the stuff of dreams for L.A. fans.

Here’s the problem: The man who worked out the three-team trade for the Hornets was GM Dell Demps and he apparently did not get approval from NBA commissioner David Stern, who was acting as interim boss of the Hornets since the league had recently bought the struggling franchise from owner George Shinn.

Stern rejected the trade and sent everyone back to their corners, confused and angry. His explanation of “basketball reasons” would become a viral joke/meme, but there was validity to the idea that the trade wouldn’t be in the best interest of the Hornets.

In fact, the trade that happened days later sending Paul to the L.A. Clippers ended up bringing the Hornets an arguably better return than the Lakers-Rockets deal.

Nothing, however, could convince some people then and even now that this wasn’t a conspiracy and a vendetta that Stern and the NBA had unleashed on the Lakers.

Some say it was all about the NBA’s small-market owners bristling at the idea of another major-market “super team” and star players in small markets being able to force their way to bigger cities.

Some say it was all about the NBA trying to keep the Lakers from getting in the way of LeBron’s quest to win his first championship, since the league needed LeBron to fulfill their hype that he was the next Michael Jordan / global icon for the sport.

Some say the NBA still had something against Kobe, who had brought bad publicity to the league with his arrest for sexual assault in 2003.

Some even claim the NBA didn’t want the Lakers to win a 17th championship and tie the Celtics for the most in league history. (Which makes no sense at all, but whatever … )

Given the events of this offseason with the Kawhi Leonard situation, one must wonder if a new conspiracy theory will arise that the NBA has been trying to help the historically disappointing Clippers at the Lakers’ expense for years.

What if the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers had been allowed to go through?

Although Paul has become notorious for his playoff failures — he has only made it to the conference finals one time, and lost — it would’ve been safe to predict an L.A. team led by CP3 and Kobe advancing at least to the NBA Finals.

That would’ve given the league what everyone had wanted and never received: Kobe vs. LeBron in the NBA Finals. Which is one reason why it’s strange to suggest the NBA didn’t want Paul on the Lakers.

That insanely lucrative potential matchup could’ve been repeated for the next few years. LeBron made it to five straight Finals between 2012 and 2016 (Kobe’s final season).

Had the Lakers acquired Paul and kept him around long-term, they probably wouldn’t have taken the nosedive that landed them in the lottery for six straight years (and counting) beginning in 2014.

The Warriors’ dynasty that produced three championships in 2015, 2017 and 2018 may never have existed with a powerful Lakers’ squad in the West.

Which means Kevin Durant may have never left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Warriors.

Which also means Kawhi Leonard may have never turned his ankle in the Warriors-Spurs series in 2017 and he may have never soured on the San Antonio franchise during his injury rehab, and he may have never been traded to the Raptors and that franchise may not have a championship today.

It’s also possible that Chris Paul and LeBron would be teammates today.

The two have been good friends for many years, so if Paul was already on the Lakers, it certainly wouldn’t have been a hurdle to signing LeBron in 2018.

LeBron may have even joined the Lakers in 2014 for the chance to play with his friend, which means LeBron and Kobe could’ve ended up being teammates.

That is a crazy enough “what-if” scenario on its own.