Chris Paul is stepping into the world of storytelling with his new production company, Ohh Dip!!!, launched in partnership with Words + Pictures. And one of the first stories he wants to tell is about a deal that could’ve changed NBA history.
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CP3 wants to talk about his failed trade to the Los Angeles Lakers and the opportunity to team up with Kobe Bryant in 2011. That could have helped him win the ring — the one missing element in his otherwise stellar career.
At the time, Paul was with the New Orleans Hornets. The franchise had worked on a three-team deal that would have sent him to the Lakers, shipped legendary Spaniard Pau Gasol to the Houston Rockets, and brought a package involving Lamar Odom and draft picks to New Orleans. For a brief moment, CP3 was a Laker, until he wasn’t.
The NBA, which temporarily owned the Hornets at the time, shut the deal down. And according to Paul, there’s more to the story than what’s been reported. While he’s heard the same tales as everyone else, he knows what really happened because he lived it.
“There’s a lot of people who say what happened and what they think [they] knew. I lived it. So I think I know a little bit better than some of these other people,” said Paul, speaking at the American Black Film Festival in Miami.
“Me and Kobe got on the phone. Like, we thought it was happening, and one day I’ll talk about the conversations we had,” added Paul, teasing what could be one of the first offerings from his production company. A big part of the narrative involves Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had just lost LeBron James to Miami a year earlier.
Gilbert sent a strongly worded letter to then-commissioner David Stern, urging him not to approve the trade. He claimed the deal was unfair and would create a superteam in Los Angeles.
“It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed. This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets,” Gilbert wrote in his letter to the commissioner.
Gilbert’s influence, combined with the league’s temporary control of the Hornets, effectively killed the deal.
Years later, in 2017, Stern defended the move by saying the trade was never officially made and that the Hornets’ then-GM Dell Demps didn’t have the authority to finalize it. “What cancellation?” Stern said. “There was nothing to void. The trade just never got made.”
For Paul, it was more than just a missed transaction. It was a sliding-doors moment. Had the deal gone through, he would’ve joined forces with Bryant in his prime.
The duo could’ve rewritten the history of the 2010s. Paul has a lot of untold stories from that time that he’d like to tell people now through his production company.
