Everyone knows Paul isn't coming back. Nobody is going to trade a better player for him, so of course Paul is going to be the best player in the trade. The Hornets were getting four players ranging from slightly above average to top quarter at their position, the Rockets were getting one of the best big men in basketball, and the Lakers weren't going to have enough assets left to get Howard anyway. You really think Orlando was going to accept just Bynum and whatever crap was left on the Lakers for Howard? Actually, yeah. That's why I think there was an uproar. In a vacuum, the Paul trade arguably makes the Lakers worse. But if a Howard deal is contingent on it going down and the other owners believe that, they're gonna wanna kill the Paul deal. Why would a Howard deal be contingent on a Paul deal? If I'm LA and I could trade Bynum+picks for Howard, I would do that regardless of if the Paul deal went through. The only thing that could possibly make the two deals related is if Howard wouldn't sign an extension unless Paul was also there, and even if he's saying that I would think LA would take the risk anyway if that's all they had to give up. I just don't think Kobe/CP3/Bynum + crap team is going to stir the owners into a frenzy and want them to kill a deal. The owners had to have believed that the Howard deal was next. As for Howard, if you think you can get CP3 in LA, and you only want to go to LA (or NJ for some reason), why wouldn't you orchestrate that? From his perspective, it looked like it was going to work perfectly. That's why I think the Howard rumor about him pushing for a trade to NJ came out last night after the Paul deal was nixed. But who knows, the whole situation is bizarre.