The Los Angeles Lakers had big plans to return to the top of the NBA after they were swept by the surprising Dallas Mavericks that won the NBA championships against all odds in 2011. They were linked with the then New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul and were really close to trading for him before David Stern called things off.
According to Jeanie Buss, the rest of the league felt it was unfair that nobody but the Lakers had the chance to make an offer for CP3 and everything fell apart. In the end, he went to Los Angeles but to play for the Clippers, changing the way people saw that team.
Things would have been marvelous for the purple and gold if they landed CP3 to play alongside Kobe Bryant and ESPN’s Zach Lowe is convinced they would have created a Big 3 with Dwight Howard anyways (0:58).
“I think the Lakers grand plan was: Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, and make the same Dwight Howard trade that ended up making later and don’t make the Steve Nash trade,” Lowe said on ‘The Jump.’
That would have been a really good Big 3 and perhaps things with Kobe and Howard would have actually worked with CP3 playing with them. That never happened, though, and the Lakers created one of the worst Big 3 in NBA history with Nash, Kobe and Dwight.
Paul went to the Clippers, where he teamed up with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, being unable to reach the Western Conference Finals before getting traded to the Houston Rockets, then Oklahoma City Thunder and now the Phoenix Suns.
Going to play with Kobe and winning a championship with him would have been massive for the point GOD but we’ll never know how that association would have fared in the league.
