What if the Chris Paul Trade to the Lakers was never vetoed?
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SteemSports Presenter:@dwin0603
SteemSports Editor:@scottybuckets
There are a ton of what ifs in any sports. And in the NBA, every trade, signings and draft picks that has been made has led the NBA into where it is right now and how’s the present NBA looks like. But what if some decisions never have been made? What if some changes did not occur? Today we will talk about one of the most important what ifs in the NBA.
What if the Chris Paul trade was never vetoed? The Chris Paul trade to the Lakers was one of the biggest what ifs in NBA history and for one reason or another, David Stern vetoed it. And that meant that the Lakers eventually ended up settling for Steve Nash who was never healthy through his whole time on the team. And Dwight Howard's attitude let the Lakers super team to become a huge disappointment. But if the trade hadn't have gotten vetoed, it would have been a big three of Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard.
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Despite all those This trade has a much bigger impact than you might think because Paul would have been a Laker during the 2011-2012 season and during his time on the Rockets, he's proven that he can play with a ball dominant shooting guard like James Harden so chemistry wouldn't have been a problem playing alongside Kobe Bryant which means that he could be the difference in the Lakers losing to the young Oklahoma City Thunder team in that year's playoffs. And if they could do that, there's a chance that they could have gone to the finals which means we could have seen a Kobe Bryant VS LeBron James NBA Finals. But what’s even more important than that the next season was a disappointment with Kobe playing almost 48 minutes a game towards the end of the year to help his team even make the playoffs.
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And then at age 34, after playing over 40 minutes a game for seven games in a row, Kobe tears his Achilles. That’s something that might not have happened if prime Chris Paul was there to lighten up the load and take some of the pressure off of Kobe who was still averaging 28 points a game. The rest of the team wasn't that good. Which is why they got swept without Kobe but with this big three healthy who knows what they could have done in the playoffs out here.
The rest of these would have had a huge impact to the league and maybe led us to a much different NBA today. But, at the end of the day, it’s all part of the past now and it’s already done. It cannot be change and it will be part of history. All we can do is to think of those what ifs and imagine how the league looks if that what ifs actually happened or didn’t happen.
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