NBA Betting – New Orleans Hornets Should Trade Chris Paul

The NBA betting scene is changing as egos and friendships get in the way of a basketball culture we all once loved slowly slips in to the past. As we all come to grips with the new NBA, the New Orleans Hornets should learn something that small market teams like the Toronto Raptors, Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers failed to understand. When you have a superstar who seems like he has one foot out the door, it’s worth it to trade him.

I’m getting sad just writing stuff like that.

Yet I can’t ignore the facts. Gone are the days of Jordan and Bird and the hyper competitive environment of the NBA. Friends want to play with friends, guys want to live in awesome cities and nobody wants to stick around for a rebuilding phase. If you are clinging on to the past, then you’re ignoring the ugly trends that are reshaping the NBA betting scene as we once knew it.

Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat are the exception to this new rule. Wade did what every star should do and somehow courted and convinced his fellow superstars to align their talents in South Beach. We don’t consider Miami a major market, but it’s undeniably one of the best cities to be young, single and filthy rich in.

The team the Hornets should learn from is the New York Knicks who were able to sign Amar’e Stoudemire and traded away David Lee in return for Ronny Turiaf, Anthony Randolph and Kelenna Azbuike. That’s how you flip a star, and a big name player, in to something tangible for your team.

While the Cleveland Cavaliers had every reason to believe that LeBron James would resign in his home state, the Toronto Raptors are the big idiots for believing that Bosh would even think about staying north of the border. What they should have done is trade him for Amar’e Stoudemire, David Lee or another big man on the market that they had a realistic chance of keeping. At the worst, they should’ve traded him for picks and prospects.

Like the Cavaliers and Suns, the Raptors lost one of the best players in the league for absolutely nothing. The Hornets can’t afford to be another victim.

It’s not that the Hornets haven’t made bold moves this summer. They traded for Trevor Ariza to give Paul a swingman that could help Emeka Okafor be more effective. They drafted Quincy Pondexter. They’re doing everything they can to keep Chris Paul, one of the best point men in the league alongside Derrick Rose, as happy as they can while making the Hornets a reasonable NBA betting pick this year.

What they should understand is that no move short of bringing in Dwight Howard is going to keep Paul content. He’s leaving and they need to accept it.

With CP3 due $32.2 million over the next two years, there’s a lot of cap space the Hornets can relieve themselves of or re-fill with a stockpile of worthy players. This isn’t the time to pontificate who they could get in return for Paul, but if the Knicks could walk away with a trio of very strong role players for a guy like David Lee, imagine what the Hornets could get in return for Paul? Two first round picks and players? The possibilities are endless.