NBA Rumors: Former Warrior Personally Tells Chris Paul Why Lakers Trade Broke Down

An NBA legend has come up with a sensible story behind the vetoed Chris Paul to the Lakers trade.

In December 2011, the Los Angeles Lakers pulled off a stunning trade agreement with the Houston Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans that would send Paul to LA. However, in less than an hour, the trade was vetoed by NBA then-commissioner David Stern due to “basketball reasons.”

Sharing his thoughts on the halted trade deal that could’ve changed the NBA’s platform in the past decade, former Golden State Warrior and Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas personally explained to Paul his realistic claim about the matter.

According to Arenas, some may argue about it but the Dwight Howard trade had something to do with it as the NBA basically didn’t want the Lakers to enjoy having “3 max players” in “D-12,” Kobe Bryant and Paul and still have room for “2 more.”

"So when it got nixed, I'm like ‘Damn what happened?” Arenas told Paul in a recent episode of “No Chill” podcast. “He [NBA agent Dan Fagan] said it was unfair. He said, 'What was in the background of all that was Dwight Howard being traded for Bynum.’”

“Remember, I'm in Orlando,” he continued. “I'm already talking to Otis [Orlando Magic GM] and it was like, 'Dwight don't want to stay.' This was when the amnesty was coming. So Orlando, they're trying to figure out if they were going to throw me in the deal and force [the] Lakers: if you want Dwight you're gonna have to take Gilbert's contract too. I was probably gonna get amnesty, basically, after all y'all superteam got together, y'all had too much money left. That was the reason it got nixed.”

“So Dan Fagan hit Mark Cuban and did the numbers. It would have destroyed the league for at least 10 years. So if you went, Dwight went, you guys had 24-30 million dollars left in cap space. So at that time you're talking about starting price about 12-13 million on a max contract. So you got 3 max players, and you can get 2 more max players,” Arenas added.

Paul, on the other hand, had already revealed his thoughts on the issue last year.

For the 11-time NBA All-Star, there was too much frustration at the time as he and the late Lakers legend Bryant were already thrilled about the trade.

“I was on the phone with my brother and my agent, and all that,” Paul said on the “Knuckleheads” podcast. “We [were] 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.”