Report: Chris Paul Wants Out of New Orleans … Now
by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni
Less than two weeks ago, Chris Paul was reportedly jokingly (or not jokingly) recruiting Carmelo Anthony, to come and join up with him and Amar’e in New York some day soon.
Things have gotten much more serious for Paul and the Hornets, according to CBS, as CP3 reportedly wants out of New Orleans sooner rather than later:
Paul, in fact, has put into motion an aggressive exit strategy that will accelerate in the coming weeks, and his clear intention is to be traded before the start of the 2010-11 season, a person with direct knowledge of his plans told CBSSports.com Wednesday.
“He wants out,” said the person, who has been briefed on Paul’s strategy but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly. “He wants to play with another superstar. He wants to follow LeBron’s model of teaming up with other great players.” Paul’s list of preferred destinations consists of the Knicks, Magic and Lakers, and members of his inner circle already have sent word to the Hornets of his desire to be traded to one of those teams, sources say. If Paul has his way, he’s played his last game in a Hornets jersey.
“He feels like they haven’t put the right pieces together,” said the person familiar with the star point guard’s plans … Sources within the NBA say members of Paul’s camp have told them recently, “He’s not going to start the season in New Orleans.”
Chris Paul doesn’t become a free agent for another two years, so his only way out of New Orleans is through a trade.
Things are going to get very interesting in the coming weeks and months, as the Hornets desperately try to hang on to their angry franchise player (while Paul’s list of preferred destinations undoubtedly scrambles to position themselves to land him.)
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Young Buck is in the driver’s seat.
“, you fu*king non-reading idiot. And I expect an apology. So shut the fu*k up yourself.
younger David West +
Defensive game changer Center if healthy +
awsome defensive and 3pt shooting french SF… is that even a questions whats the best team for him?!
Brandon Roy
Nicolas Batum
LaMarcus Aldridge
Greg Oden/Marcus Camby sharing time. THATS ALL
I guess people just like CP3 more…
@TrailBlazing&SportingLisbon
If they make a deal with Portland then you can expect Batum and Oden to be in the deal
Seriously, you can be playing your heart out for a squad, have your children enrolled in a school in a city, and then be told by the GM that they’ve decided to go in a different direction and you’ve been traded. Ask Chauncey Billups about that.
Or, you could have scrapped, worked and fought to become an NBA player, and finally made a squad, only to be waived by the GM because the team thinks it needs more cap space to go after the free agent du jour.
Major league sports are a business. The owners operate it like a business, the players should comport themselves like employees. Employees with “loyalty” to corporations are fools waiting to get fleeced. You do your job to the best of your ability and you constantly look out for your best interests. That’s the smart play.
Some of y’all act like these players are your girlfriends or something. Like they owe you something because you spend your time and money watching them play basketball. They only owe you to play basketball. That’s it. You’re paying for entertainment, not for their loyalty or souls. And, most fans will turn on a player in a second if they team struggles, or his performance drops. I dont’ blame them for looking out for themselves.
Shoot, throw in Julian Wright and Ike Diogu and…no, that’s stretching it. (thought I DO think Ike never got a fair shake)
Make sure you don’t find the articles about Magic chasing Paul Westhead off after they won a ring because Magic wanted to run more and be “The Man.”
You might cause some of these cats brains to explode?
Or the articles about Bird calling out his teammates in the media. Don’t want those to get out.
Hell, the only player to really keep his mouth shut and play was actually Isiah. He only spoke when baited.
No more than the cats at ESPN when their contracts come up. Or Rick Reilly did at Sports Illustrated. Or Bill Simmons did then negotiating time off to write his book.
They provide a service on contract. The company values their service. They use the leverage of them going somewhere else to get a better deal from the company.
That’s capitalism people. That’s how the system works.
You can’t make sport a business when it’s convienient, and some sort of quasi-loyalty thing when it’s not.
Dan Gilbert made money and expanded his business with Lebron. Mike Brown and Danny Ferry were able to succeed despite glaring weaknesses in their skillset because of Lebron.
Lebron recognized his leverage, and used it to get perks for himself and his friends. If you hate this, then you hate how the employee of the month gets a parking space, or an end of the year bonus.
You hate scholarships, athletic and academic.
You hate capitalism because that’s what this was, capitalism at work. If you allowed yourself to be sucked in to the hype about “loyalty” and “pride” and all that foolishness, you need to be mad at yourself.
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny ain’t real.
The press conference invited hate, no doubt.
But, trust, the people who say that Lebron betrayed his team and is fans would be saying the same thing no matter what.
Because some people have bought in to the fantasy promulgated by the media and team owners about what Major League sports are. Thus, anything that disturbs that fantasy is attacked. This mindset is repeated in many ways for many issues.
I’ve said many times the press conference was unnecessary. Just from a business and personal standpoint, it didn’t make sense. However, your comments referenced his “flirting” with other teams over a year ago, or some other such nonsense, not the decision.
Up until The Decision show, I had no problem with any action taken by Lebron James as an employee of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He said his options were open and he was going to make the best decision for him and his family. Period.
You are asking for class because you are operating within the paradigm that their is some sort of symbiotic relationship between fans and players.
That is a fantasy created and marketed by people who make money off that fantasy, and accepted by fans who receive some sort of enjoyment from accepting that fantasy.
If you willing accept a fantasy, whose fault is it when you are smacked in the face with the truth? Your fault, first, and the fault of those people who encouraged you to make such an asinine decision.
Where in that equation is Lebron? Nowhere.
He was honest with fans about how he was going tom ake his decision since he signed his first contract after his rookie deal. I think he should have issued a one page press release, but other than that, nothing he did was wrong.
People in regular jobs are constantly looking to improve their situations.
They leave jobs for more security, more money, better hours, less work, and all kinds of other reaons.
Yet, because of they begrudge athletes the same freedom. As if their salaries mean they don’t get to have certain rights. And then folks bristle when people call these players $40 million slaves.
Y’all are just illogical.
Judging people to where it fits his criteria.
@Dma, you had me at “I’d like to see a three way”
That is a fantasy created and marketed by people who make money off that fantasy, and accepted by fans who receive some sort of enjoyment from accepting that fantasy.’ Even though that ‘fantasy’ as you call it is definitely marketed by people, clubs, brands and the like and used as a tool to generate hype/money. It is still not a fantasy; the reason for this is that a huge amnount of fans, owners and players belive in it, and acts accordingly to it. Hence making it more than a fantasy. There can be a special bond between players and fans; when both sides realises it and acknowledges it. The business/capitalist side of sport will still prevail and still dictate things; players gets traded, sold, cut etc. But that symbiotic relationship you refer to as a fantasy actually exist on many occasions. A couple of examples (teams refering to fanbases); Allen Iverson/76′ers, Ewing/Knicks, R.Miller/Pacers (and Knicks although hate relationship), MJ/Bulls, Bad Boys/Detroit and from other sports; J. Zanetti and M. Materazzi/Inter Milan, Robinho/Santos, Franco Baresi/AC Milan, Zidane/Real Madrid, Gerrard/Liverpool, Lampard/Chelsea, Terry/Chelsea and the list goes on. Everyday some star in whatever sport turns down bigger money and opportunities for the love of a club and the fanbases are very often a huge part of that love/relationship. So although a lot of players act in a capitalistic way, and the fact that money controls sports. The relationship between fans/players and loyalty, pride, togetherness and sometimes pure love is indeed very real. So the fantasy is real and no fantasy, since it conditions plenty of decision by players, teams/clubs and even (supercapitalist) owners.
I don’t know what your education was from your folks. Speculating on it would be dumb.
I got exactly what you said, which is why I prefaced my comments by noting I also disagreed with The Decison show concept.
Your comments reflected that you were upset with his “flirting” with other teams. You claimed he held people’s jobs in his hand, that he toyed with them and their livelihooods to sate his ego.
I’m disputing that fact.
Lebron leveraged his position within the company to accrue benefits. We don’t know what all those benefits were, but we know there were some.
We know Gilbert gave Lebron these benefits because he was pulling down $100 million thanks to Lebron’s presence. For those who have forgotten, $100 is what top-notch free agents receive as max deals, does anybody think Cleveland operated as a top notch company during Gilbert’s tenure?
You think it’s obscene that Lebron considered going to other teams, and was open with fans and management that he was going to consider leaving.
I think that’s honest.
You think it’s obscene that he told other teams he would consider them, I think that’s consistent.
You think that as a player or employee you “owe” your company some sort of loyalty.
I think you owe them to do your job until you decide you no longer want to get paid to do it, or until they decide they no longer want to pay you to do it.
See, that’s the real world. My parents taught me to be loyal to folks who are loyal to me. They taught me not to invest loyalty in a company or corporation that sees me as a cog in a larger machine.
The NBA is a business. A big, expensive business. The owners hire a commissioner to enforce the rules they agree to enforce and hire players to abide by those rules and play games in exhange for payment. They sell that product to fans.
That’s all it is. Nothing more, nothing less. I watch sports because I like basketball and love seeing it played at the highest level. I don’t care about the teams, and I only care a little about the players. I care about the product they produce and that’s what I pay to watch and discuss.
I expect NBA players to behave like employees. You do your job to the best of your ability until you decide to stop doing your job and move on.
That’s it.
I concede that sometimes fans and players and teams can have a true “relationship.”
However, I say that the relationship is always contingent upon people fitting into certain roles, and on all the groups in the relationships seeing the situation as mutally and equally beneficial.
In my opinion, fans, owners and players selectively invoke concepts like “loyalty” when it suits their purposes, not because any of them truly understand the concept of loyalty.
You can’t be loyal to a player, and turn your back on him when he struggles. None of us would accept that loyalty from a friend.
You can’t be loyal to a team and demand they trade you when things are tough. Again, that’s ridiculous.
Since neither fans, owners or players show true loyalty, all of them need to stop using that term when discussing their business relationship.
It’s misplaced and misguided.
Period
Just knock off the slurs, dude.
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@ JGaylor- WHEN YOU ARE WRONG YOU JUST SAY STUPID STUFF, YOU DON’T HAVE THE INTELLIGENCE TO PUT UP AN ARGUMENT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE
You ARE inferring LEbron’s team is good. They had two 60+ win seasons didn’t they? If you’re not inferring that Lebron’s team is good, then it was LEBRON who took a TERRIBLE team to 60+ wins and he was justified in leaving.
You can’t have your cake and eat it to. If the Cavaliers do absolutely atrocious next year, you’re wrong. If they do great, you’re right. That’s the end of the story.
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@ niQ & Jukai- You’re barking at the wrong tree, JGaylor is the one that is constantly calling people nut suckers & that Kobe is raping them in the but, ASK HIM HOW OLD HE IS, DON’T YOU SEE THAT’S ALL HE SAYS, HE DOESN’T PUT TOGETHER INTELLIGENT ARGUMENTS LIKE THE REST OF US
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@ Eboy & Jukai- I respect your opinions, but I don’t respect JGaylor21 one bit, all he does is say stupid stuff
Once again, yer right: there’s a case that Lebron PERMANENTLY damaged his legacy by doing something no one has ever done (leave his 60 win team for a team with a former finals MVP and HOF talent). I just think yer off on how good Lebron’s team was.
They were awful.
They got 60 wins cause of Lebron.
Sure, Lebron may have won a championship in four years, but that’s max. He can win four championships max in Miami. While playing with his two BFFs. That’s pretty enticing.
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Once again you guys are barking at the wrong tree, go look at JGaylor’s comments, they are all about Lakers/Kobe fans drinking Kobe’s man juice, THAT’S NOT CHILDISH YOU CONTRADICTORY BASTARDS?????
if you take CP3 off the Hornets, they are AWFUL. If you take Lebron off the Cavaliers, they are AWFUL. There isn’t any comparison between the three teams you mentioned and how bad the hornets/cavs would be because of their cast.
Allen-Pierce-Garnett
Wade-Lebron-Bosh
CP3-Melo-Amare
How awesome would that be? Sure, there is a clear best and worst in those trios, but that would be FUN come every playoffs.
But he didn’t.
He actually didn’t do much of anything.
In fairness, he wasn’t used right in the Boston series (should have came off the bench, gone in a the three when Lebron was resting) but he pretty much was a non-factor throughout the playoff run. Maybe he needed another year to adjust to the team. Maybe not. Bottom line, he didn’t work out at all, and it’s undeniable.
I get saying “give him another year, don’t bail Lebron. LEt Jamison come into the system.” But from the time they played together, Jamison did nothing.
get off this site dude.. your know nothing about basketball and cant even make a decent arguement.. i absolutely hate eboy but at least he can put together a decent arguement.. JTaylor21 knows what hes talking dude so stop hatin n runnin your unintelligent, ignorant mouth
I can’t blame him for wanting to leave. Who doesn’t want to win?
The thing I love about today’s players is that they know that they will never duplicate what the Michaels, Magics, Birds, etc. have done. They are brilliant in that respect.
Only people like us are expecting the impossible from these players, and they can’t do it.
So, why not join together?
Individually, it’s not going to happen…
Not even for Kobe.
You are right, but y’all know what I’m saying.
As far as all time individual accolades, and what not… who’s going to top those guys like Michael, Magic, and Larry?
The only thing left is team success, so, they might as well pave the way and “change the game” as far as everything else goes.
Forget about individuality, you know?
Oh wait, Laker fans don’t h@te Chris Paul.
CLE minus Lebron = 35 wins (impact 26 wins)
NOH minus Paul = 30 wins (injured most ot year)
MIA minus Wade = 18 wins (impact 29 wins)
I’m amazed at how many people actually think that’s a good thing.
Look at the NFL and all the news that just playing hte sport these days causes serious brain damage. And they have non-guaranteed so you can be like LT and give your heart and soul to a franchise and then have them dump you later in your career to save money and move on.
That’s loyalty right there for sure.
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