CP3 trade scenarios...what do the Hornets want?

Yes, I would.

I just think you have to give up talent to get talent and the Clippers (unless they move EJ) aren’t giving up talent. Sure, they’re giving up the hope of talent in the Minny pick but picks flame out all the time. Otherwise, the Clippers are only offering salary relief and I don’t think that’s enough to get it done.

You have to give up something to get something.

BTW, we’re assuming this is an extend and trade, right?

I think I would say no if we are already giving them the mini pick, I think giving up EJ as well as likely top 3 pick in what will be a draft for the ages would be too much. Maybe I might be willing to do that if we swapped picks that way we would at least have two picks in the draft and I imagine the Hornets without Paul will probably not be a playoff team so it would likely still be a lottery pick.

offer for Griffin…big no

offers for Gordon (or Jordan)…try to counter offer with other players first

ultimately, i would want to keep Griffin-Gordon-Jordan intact as much as possible…but for CP3, any of them (except Griffin of course) is NOT a deal breaker

wouldn’t we have a hole in the SG and SF positions if we trade away Gordon? Those are the primary scoring positions. I know that Paul would make everyone on the court better, but we would lack that extra offensive punch. I would hate to trade EJ unless we doubt that he will resign and I would not want to give up the MInny Pick. Tough decisions.

I really believe that this team needs to keep Griffin and Gordon no matter what.

I think that we’d be doing a disservice to ourselves if we gave up Gordon, the Minny pick and our capspace flexibility. We’ll get a top notch player in return, but how do we improve from there if we place all of our eggs in one basket? Also, who else is proposing a comparable offer that he would extend with? Boston and OKC could, but are those teams on his list of possible destinations?

In the event that we did give up Gordon and the Minny pick for Paul, we better not be taking back Okafor, Ariza or any other “bad contract.” We would then still have young talent and expiring contracts to work with in order to upgrade the team through trade.

And going into the future, would surely be in the $70’s unless they made some changes. Is that $58M assumption still good? What about in 2012 and beyond?

Foye, while not great, would not be a horrible starting 2 guard. Lets face it; he started about half of last year and we did fine. Kaman would not be a loss if we had already resigned DJ and got Okafor.

That leaves us set at PG, PF, C, with a small hole at SG and a gaping one at SF. Our bench would be great, but I would much rather put in Bledsoe and Aminu instead of EJ. I dont think NO would go for it though.

There are, however, a few other teams Paul would consider signing extensions with, most notably the Los Angeles Clippers. Yes, the Clippers.

Now that Blake Griffin plays for L.A.’s other team, the Clippers have become a hot destination franchise. Stacked with young talent, they could offer any combination of Eric Gordon, Mo Williams, DeAndre Jordan, Chris Kaman and Al-Farouq Aminu.

But while the Clippers like Paul, sources say they like Dwight Howard even more. The Clippers have made it clear to executives throughout the league that they will do whatever it takes — outside of trading Griffin — to get Howard, who will become a free agent at the same time as Paul, either this season or next summer. So they will not move the players they’ll try to use to get Howard to New Orleans for Paul.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/33566/chris-paul-and-new-yorks-hopes

DJ + Bledsoe + Mo-Will + Kaman + Minny Pick

for

CP3 + Okafor + Ariza