Point guard Chris Paul finally got his wish and was traded to Los Angeles by the New Orleans Hornets. However, he ended up with the Clippers not the Lakers. Paul had hoped to join the Lakers a week earlier, but the NBA rejected the deal that was in place.

They didn’t have a problem with this deal though that saw Paul and a pair of second-round draft picks in 2015 head to the west coast for center Chris Kaman, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, guard Eric Gordon, and a first-round draft pick. The Hornets are owned by the NBA and therefore had to get approval of the trade from league commissioner David Stern.

Stern said it’s his job to do the best thing for the Hornets and he didn’t call off the original Paul trade to the Lakers due to the opinion of other franchise owners. Of course, rating the players in the trade is up for debate. Paul ends up in LA, but with a different team and the controversy has died down for the time being.

Stern said he’s trying to make the Hornets as competitive as possible, especially since the league is looking for a new owner that wants to keep the team in New Orleans. He said there are a few potential owners on the horizon and he’s optimistic that the franchise has a bright future ahead of it.

The Clippers are glad this trade was approved since they now have a 26-year-old four-time All-Star on their roster. Paul, a six-year veteran, managed to sink 18.7 points on average per game last season along with 9.8 assists. He now teams up with Clippers forward Blake Griffin and that pair could do a lot of damage this season. Griffin had an excellent rookie season last year with a 22.5 points-per-game average to go along with 12.1 rebounds.

Paul doesn’t come cheaply though as he’ll be paid $16.4 million in 2011/12 and $17.8 million the next year, which is his option season. The Hornets received some good players in return. Gordon knows where the basket is as his 22.3 point-per-game average last season proves. However, if he doesn’t sign a contract extension with New Orleans he’ll be a restricted free agent at the end of the season.

Aminu is 6-foot-9, and sank 5.6 points a game with 3.3 rebounds last year in his rookie season. Kaman’s a 7-footer and former all-star, who managed 12.4 points a game last year along with seven rebounds, but he suffered an ankle injury and only managed to play in 32 games. He’s also in the last season of his current deal and will make $12.2 million in 2011/12.

The Hornets are hoping the club’s fans are happy with the deal since more fans in the seats will make the franchise easier to sell. They didn’t really have a choice other than to trade Paul since he said he wasn’t going to extend his deal with the Hornets and would have been eligible to leave as a free agent. Adding Aminu, Kaman and Gordon to the roster will give New Orleans some added depth and their presence could also help the team attract some good free agents.

The NBA players just ratified the new collective bargaining agreement with the league on Dec. 8, and it didn’t take long for the first controversial issue to rear its head. New Orleans thought they had a deal worked out that would have seen guard Chris Paul shipped off to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the league rejected the move.

Paul, an all-star guard, would have ended up in LA while Lamar Odom would have been sent to New Orleans and Pau Gasol would have landed in Houston. But even though the NBA operates the Hornets, the three-team deal was shot down. All of the players involved are expected to open training camps with their respective teams on Dec. 9.

Paul expressed his disappointment with the leagues rejection via his Twitter page after the news came down. It was reported that the deal was swept under the rug because several club owners were against it, but NBA Commissioner David Stern said that wasn’t true. Stern said the trade wasn’t discussed during the board of governors meeting, but reports said Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was one owner who disagreed with the deal.

The new bargaining agreement was signed by the owners as a way to keep the league competitive and for small-market teams to be able to hang on to their top players. The deal to send Paul to the Lakers was exactly what they didn’t want to see. It meant the Hornets would have lost their marquee player to one of the league’s richest and biggest markets.

The NBA took over the Hornets in December 2010 when it purchased the franchise from George Shinn. In addition, the trade would have also seen New Orleans receive point guard Doran Dragic, shooting guard Kevin Martin and forward Luis Scola, along with a first-round draft pick from Houston. Odom, last season’s Sixth Man of the Year, has spent most of his career in Los Angeles and seemed to be relieved he wasn’t leaving the city. The Lakers may now try to acquire center Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic.

If New Orleans can’t trade Paul, he’s eligible to  opt out of present contract at the end of the season, which is a good possibility. The Hornets obviously would rather trade him and get something of value in return than simply letting him walk away for nothing. The 26-year-old scored 15.8 points a game on average last season along with 9.8 assists.

New Orleans has seen its ticket sales increase slightly even though the Paul situation is looming and the NBA lockout lasted several months. The team is hoping to find a buyer that will keep it in the state of Louisiana. The Hornets sold just over 6,000 season tickets last year and have managed to sell 10,000 already for the upcoming campaign.

It’ll be interesting to see if Paul, Gasol, and Odom report for training camp or if the rejection of the trade may be challenged in court.

It looks like the NBA is a step closer to implementing a policy that deals with concussions next season after meeting with an independent neurologist.

Tim Frank, an NBA spokesman, said the league has been studying the effects of concussions on players for a few years now, but at the moment each team has its own policy and that means things may be handled differently from team to team. The league is thinking about bringing in a policy that each club would have to follow.

The NFL and NHL already have league-wide rules in place and the increasing number of concussions in the NBA will likely lead to the same thing. Six players have missed basketball games in the last month due to concussions.

Chris Paul, point guard for New Orleans, was carried off the court on a stretcher on March 6 after he hit his forehead on Cleveland’s Ramon Sessions’ shoulder. Paul was diagnosed with suffering from a concussion and it’s unknown how long he’ll be out of action.

Milwaukee Bucks’ Keyon Dooling, who’s a member of the players’ executive committee said basketball players don’t really realize how bad concussions can be because they don’t happen too often in the sport, they’re more common in hockey and football.

Both the league and players’ union have been keeping track of hits to the head and Frank said there haven’t been too many, but it’s still a concern and clubs have to be cautious with them and make sure players don’t return to action until they’ve fully recovered.

LA Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said the league will have to balance out how the game is played with player safety. He said it’s fine trying to bring in new rules to protect the players, but he doesn’t want to see them spoil the natural flow of the game. He said there’s going to be physical contact and collisions in the air because it’s a part of the game.

The NHL and NFL have tightened their rules when it comes to head hits and Major League Baseball is thinking about introducing a seven-day disabled list for players who might have concussions. This will give doctors at least a week to properly diagnose them.

Many star players in different leaguers have suffered from shots to the head lately. In the NHL, Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who was leading the league in scoring, hasn’t played since being hit on Jan. 6. He’s still out and has missed almost a third of the season.

Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered two concussions and missed an NFL game this season and Minnesota Twins Justin Morneau played his first MLB spring training game on March 8 after suffering a concussion back in July. It’s been reported that eight NBA players sat out games this season due to head injuries and there’s been an average of nine over the last five years. However, those numbers could actually be higher as players are sometimes misdiagnosed.

It’s likely we’ll see a new policy brought in sometime soon and it makes sense to protect players as much as possible from themselves.