With the news that David West plans to test free agency once a new CBA is finalized (whenever that is), the Hornets have two choices: 1) let him walk and further hurt their chances of re-signing Chris Paul, or 2) overpay to keep West. Let’s assume they do the pragmatic thing and let him walk. At that point, the franchise needs to take the long-term view and try to rebuild. Paul will most likely leave at the end of the season, so the Hornets should try to get as much as they can while they can, or else they’ll end up like the Cavs or the Raptors, watching their star walk away with very little to show for it.

With that in mind, here are five semi-reasonable trade offers for Chris Paul. I use the phrase ‘semi-reasonable’ because New Orleans fans need to keep their expectations in check — teams are never able to get equal value for their disgruntled/one-foot-out-the-door stars.

1. Thunder trade Russell Westbrook, Cole Aldrich, Thabo Sefolosha and Nate Robinson for CP3.
See this trade in the ESPN Trade Machine. The key to this trade is obviously Westbrook — a young All-Star who has proven that he’s not ready to lead the Thunder, who could absolutely take over the Western Conference if they could get heady, consistent point guard play. Westbrook is only 22, and could eventually develop into a top tier point guard, but right now he doesn’t know how to run a team. He turns the ball over way too much and his shot selection in crunch time is suspect at best. The Thunder shouldn’t wait for him to develop; with the Lakers and Spurs on the decline and Dirk Nowitzki getting older, the time is now for OKC. On the flip side, the Hornets have the luxury of letting him develop. Who knows, maybe he turns into a top 10 player. Even if he has plateaued, a 22-year-old All-Star is not a bad haul for CP3, who is likely out the door next summer. Aldrich and Sefolosha sweeten the deal a little bit, balance the salaries out, and give the Hornets a couple of young rotation players. As for Paul’s contract situation, call me crazy, but I think he signs a long-term deal given the opportunity to play with Kevin Durant and James Harden.

2. Celtics trade Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic for CP3 and Aaron Gray.
See this trade in the ESPN Trade Machine. This is a ‘one last run’ move for the Celtics, who aren’t going to get past the Heat and Bulls with their current lineup. Paul adds a new dimension to the Celtics offense and would be deadly in the pick-and-pop with Kevin Garnett. Plus, he’d give the Celtics a guy to build around once they decide to part ways with KG and Ray Allen, allowing Paul Pierce to fill a more complimentary role. (This assumes that Paul would be willing to re-up with the Celtics.) For the Hornets, they get an All-Star point guard who has had more ups than downs, along with a versatile forward (Green) who has proven he can score 16+ a game.

3. Clippers trade Eric Gordon, Mo Williams and the T-Wolves’ unprotected 2012 first round draft pick for CP3.
See this trade in the ESPN Trade Machine. Gordon developed into a 22 ppg scorer in just his third season in the league. Williams is a capable point guard (and former All-Star), but the other key to this trade is the Wolves’ unprotected 2012 first round pick that the Clippers own as part of the Marko Jaric trade. (That’s right, the T-Wolves are still paying for Marko Jaric.) With the direction Minnesota is headed, the pick is likely to be in the top 5, so the Hornets would likely get another player with star potential in the Draft. The Clippers would be able to pair CP3 with Blake Griffin, but the question is would there be enough talent on the roster to convince both players to re-up? Plus, there’s the Donald Sterling Factor.

4. Grizzlies trade Rudy Gay and Mike Conley for CP3.
See this trade in the ESPN Trade Machine. The Grizzlies proved that they could win without Gay, but struggled in crunch time because they didn’t have a playmaker on the perimeter. Paul would fit in well with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol and maybe he’d be able to coax better production out of O.J. Mayo as well. The Hornets would get a very good small forward in Gay (20-6-3, 40% 3PT) along with an improving point guard (Conley) to replace Paul. The problem with this trade is Paul’s willingness to sign a long-term deal. It’s not likely that he’s going to want to stay in Memphis for the next five years.

5. Hawks trade Josh Smith and Jeff Teague for CP3.
See this trade in the ESPN Trade Machine. Perhaps Atlanta would need to include a first round pick to sweeten the deal, but Smith is a borderline All-Star (and possibly Atlanta’s best player) and Teague played very well when given the keys in the Playoffs. The Hawks would have one of the best backcourts in the league in Paul and Joe Johnson, and Al Horford is more than capable of hitting jumpers off the pick-and-pop. The Hornets would get a supremely talented power forward to replace David West and Teague could emerge as a starting-caliber point guard in a year or two.

In the end, the Hornets probably won’t make a bold trade including Paul, but the longer they wait, the worse off they’ll be. The Nuggets did all right with the Carmelo trade, but it nearly destroyed their season.

Do you miss Blake Griffin already? Check out this compilation of all of his dunks from the 2010-11 season.

The New York Daily News reports that a possible move by the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim is likely to be opposed by the two teams already in the L.A. area.

The move to Anaheim will be opposed by the Lakers and Clippers, who see it as an encroachment on their territory. But sources close to the Maloofs say they’re willing to pay the two L.A. teams whatever it takes to relocate. That would be in addition to the league’s relocation fee of $30 million.

Anaheim Honda Center and Ducks owner Henry Samueli is prepared to help the Maloofs with the financing, offering a $100 million loan. Samueli tried to buy the team last year.

I live about six miles from the Honda Center and I’d love to see the Kings play there. I go to about one or two Clippers/Lakers games a year, and I’m thinking about getting season tickets to see the the Anaheim Kings (or whatever they end up calling themselves), so I don’t see the Kings as major competition for the Lakers or Clippers. If either franchise (especially the Clippers) were serious about courting Orange County, they’d move to Anaheim. As it stands, the 45-mile trek into the city (oftentimes during rush hour) is more than most OC folks can handle.

Orange County has more than 3.0 million residents, while Los Angeles County boasts 9.8 million residents. The OC’s population is greater than the metro areas of these current NBA cities: Denver (2.5 M), Portland (2.2 M), Sacramento (2.1 M), Cleveland (2.1 M), Orlando (2.1 M), San Antonio (2.1 M), Charlotte (1.7 M), Indianapolis (1.7 M), Milwaukee (1.6 M), Memphis (1.3 M), Oklahoma City (1.2 M), New Orleans (1.2 M) and Salt Lake City (1.1 M).

In short, there’s plenty of room for a third team in SoCal, though the best move would be for the Clippers to head south. That isn’t going to happen as long as Donald Sterling is the owner, and he isn’t likely to sell anytime soon, so I don’t blame the Maloofs for trying to capitalize on a move to Anaheim.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (talk about a dumb name for a baseball team) were #5 in average attendance in 2010 and 2009. The Anaheim Ducks have been in the #15-#25 range over the past four seasons.

Orange County will support a professional team if it’s good. Southern Californians are notoriously front-running, and will only go out of their way to support a winner. A team that loses like the Kings have this season is unlikely to outdraw Sacramento or Las Vegas, but Anaheim has a respectable arena and the Maloofs are finding that they have a lot of support from Samueli, who owns the Ducks and the Honda Center.

So the Clippers and Lakers may oppose the move, and why not? There’s no downside for them. If they put up a stink, they’ll at the very least get some extra cash out of the deal to grease the wheels.

But it’s not fair to basketball fans in Orange County, who would like a local team to root for that wouldn’t require an hour-plus white knuckle drive to see in person. It’s nonsensical that a metro area this populous and spread out has two teams sharing an arena when there’s a comparable arena in Anaheim.

This ad ran recently in the L.A. Times. Take a good look.

On the surface, Clippers owner Donald Sterling was trying to do something nice. He wanted to admit 1,000 “underprivileged children” free to the Clippers/Rockets game on March 2 in honor of Black History Month.

Only Black History Month is in February. Why is he celebrating it in March? And why is he associating “underprivileged kids” with Black History Month in the first place? Is he implying that all “underprivileged kids” are black? And how did the Staples Center employees know if a kid was “underprivileged” or not when he/she showed up for the game? By the color of his skin?

If this were any other owner, people would have a chuckle and write it off as poor planning by the team’s public relations department, but Sterling has a long history of racial missteps, from discrimination lawsuits in his real estate ventures to comments he allegedly made in the Clipper locker room.

The guy just can’t get out of his own way.

The Los Angeles Clippers just pulled off the unthinkable: they managed to trade away Baron Davis’s untradeable contract. But it cost them a lottery pick.

Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer has the details.

An NBA source has confirmed to the Plain Dealer that the Cavaliers are about to send guard Mo Williams and forward Jamario Moon to the Los Angeles Clippers for guard Baron Davis and a No. 1 draft pick in the 2011 draft. That likely will be a lottery selection, although this draft is not considered to be particularly strong.

Below you’ll find a table with each player’s age, ’10-11 Player Efficiency Rating (via John Hollinger of ESPN) as well as their salaries for the next two seasons. Both contracts expire in 2013.

The Clippers are going to save approximately $11.7 million over the next two seasons with this trade. Even though Davis has a higher PER this season, they’re probably getting the better player in Mo Williams, who has battled injuries this year and hasn’t been the same since LeBron left last summer. I suspect he’ll be revitalized playing with Blake Griffin just as Davis was for the first half of the season.

When I first saw the headline about the Cavs trading for Davis, I chuckled, but with the Clippers’ first round pick included in the deal, it makes a lot more sense. The Cavs are basically buying the Clips’ #8 overall pick (which could end up being quite a bit higher or a little lower) in the 2011 draft for around $12 million.

Side note: It just goes to show how out of whack the NFL rookie salaries are for the top picks because it’s almost impossible to find an NFL team that wants to trade into the upper part of the draft. And here the Cavs are spending $12 million for that right because the NBA rookie salary scale is a much better deal for teams drafting in the lottery.

There’s no telling how this trade is going to work out until we see what kind of player the Cavs get with the pick. One thing it does buy the Cavs is hope. Mo Williams wasn’t going to take this team anywhere and neither is Baron Davis. Williams has more value because he’s going to provide about the same production at a fraction of the cost, but by acquiring a lottery pick, the Cavs have another building block for their rebuilding project.

The short-term winner in this trade is definitely the Clips. Not only did they shed themselves of Davis and his terrible contract (which they gave him in the first place), they also freed up enough cash in the summer of 2012 to make a run at a max free agent, assuming the next collective bargaining agreement allows for this. There are already rumors swirling that Deron Williams could join the Clips that summer, and Chris Paul could be a free agent next summer as well.

One thing is certain — the Clips have to sign/acquire a great player to play alongside Blake Griffin before he has an opportunity to sign elsewhere. If they can sign Deron Williams/Chris Paul, re-sign Griffin, and can keep Eric Gordon in the fold as well, the Clippers will really be in business.

This video should get everyone ready for the dunk contest tonight (8 PM ET, TNT). It compiles all 137 of Griffin’s pre-All-Star dunks.

We all knew this day was coming…

He doesn’t get the press that Griffin gets (for obvious reasons), but DeAndre Jordan is quietly having a solid third season. Here are three dunks he had against the Bucks on Monday night.

Jordan is averaging 7.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks in 25 minutes of playing time, and the 6-11 center is only 22 years old.

Hornets fans are going to cringe when they read the title of this post. I get it — the Hornets are a solid 31-18 and the Chris Paul trade talk has died down considerably since last summer.

But these facts remain: 1) New Orleans is not a legit contender, 2) the team’s second-best player (David West) is getting older (30) and approaching free agency, and 3) Paul can become a free agent in the summer of 2012.

After some trade rumors were floating around last summer, Paul met with the New Orleans newly-hired braintrust and has since kept his mouth shut, playing the role of good soldier. He’s having a good season (16.7 points, 9.7 assists, 2.6 steals) and the Hornets are having a nice year. But virtually no one believes that they’ll be representing the West in the Finals this summer. One online casino’s long-term market shows the Hornets as a 19-1 longshot to make the Finals. That’s pretty telling considering how inconsistent the Lakers have been this season.

So what does this have to do with Blake Griffin? Well, I went to see my beloved Bucks take on the Clippers last night at the Staples Center and got to see Griffin in person. He went for 32-11-6, and generally killed Milwaukee with a plethora of post moves, drives and long jumpers. The Bucks are a good defensive team, but they had no answer for Griffin who flat-out dominated the game offensively for the Clippers.

Griffin is a special talent. He can jump out of the gym, but he has the ability to channel his athleticism into effective basketball talent which is not always easy for someone so athletic. The 31-year-old Baron Davis is serviceable at point guard, but if the Clippers could somehow acquire Paul (25), and surround the dynamic duo with a couple of shooters and a defensive center, Griffin and Paul could lead the Clippers to the Promised Land.

How do the Clippers acquire Paul? I doubt the Hornets are going to listen to trade offers right now, but if I’m Clipper GM Neil Olshey, I’d call up Dell Demps and make a standing offer of Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman and the Minnesota Timberwolves unprotected 2012 first rounder. The deal would net the Hornets a future All-Star in Gordon, as well as cap relief and solid post play in the form of Kaman. With the direction the T-Wolves are headed, that 2012 draft pick will probably be in the Top 5. Gordon would be a steep price to pay, but if you want a Top 2 point guard in a point guard-dominated league, you’re going to have to give something up.

Paul and Griffin would be devastating in the pick-and-roll and Griffin’s ability to post up would take the pressure off of Paul and allow him to take over in the clutch if the situation warranted it. Paul would also love playing with D’Andre Jordan, who has already shown a Tyson Chandler-like ability to finish alley-oops with outstanding power.

Worried about L.A. being a Laker town? Kobe is starting to show his age and if Paul and Griffin are headlining the Clippers, it won’t take long for a good portion of the Laker “faithful” to switch sides and start rooting for the city’s other team.

I’m not suggesting this is likely to happen, or even remotely possible. I’m just saying that it should happen. Even if Donald Sterling is the worst owner in the league.

Oh, and if CP3 isn’t available, Deron Williams would work too.