It looks like Chris Paul isn't going to Los Angeles after all.
Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the three-team deal that would send the New Orleans Hornets point guard to the Lakers is now off. NBA commissioner David Stern reportedly killed the trade after getting pressure from other owners.
"The NBA has killed the proposed deal to send Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources tell Yahoo! Sports," Wojnarowski tweeted Thursday night.
"The NBA has caved to pressure from owners that the appearance of this deal, on heels of lockout, had to be stopped, sources tell Y! Sports," he added.
A handful of owners were in New York on Thursday night to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement, and they apparently strongly protested the three-team deal that would have also included the Houston Rockets.
According to Wojnarowski, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was one of those strongly protesting the deal.
"[Cuban] was one of the most vocal in a chorus of owners irate with the belief that the five-month lockout had happened largely to stop big-market teams from leveraging small-market teams for star players pending free agency," wrote Wojnarowski.
Of course, what makes this even more interesting is the fact that the NBA now owns the Hornets. Financial problems led then-owner George Shinn to sell the team to the league in December 2010.
The three teams reportedly agreed to a deal that would send Paul to L.A. earlier in the night. In that reported deal, the Lakers would send Pau Gasol to Houston and Lamar Odom to New Orleans. The Rockets would send Kevin Martin, Luis Scola and Goran Dragic to the Hornets as well.
