3 galaxy brain Chris Paul trades to blow your chakras wide open

1. Put Chris Paul on the Lakers, finally

As long as we’re fixing the mistakes of the past, let’s flip David Stern the metaphysical bird and put Chris Paul on the Lakers.

The Suns may not want to help a division rival become a contender and this would almost certainly mean taking a small step back in the short term, hopefully for a long-term reward. But they get to try riding the Russell Westbrook freight train for the rest of this season and see where it takes them. At the end of the year, his salary comes off the books and they can chase free agents like Kyrie Irving, Fred VanVleet or Draymond Green with a near-contention core as a selling point. They also pick up a 2027 first-round pick that’s likely to be very valuable if they can get it unprotected.

For the Lakers, the replace Westbrook with Paul, who may have less gas left in the tank but is an infinitely better fit in roughly the same role. They also get to plug Crowder and Saric into the lineup and hopefully catch lightning in a bottle when Anthony Davis gets healthy. If they come up short they’ll have less cap space to work with this summer but the expirings of Saric and Crowder at least give them something to work with.

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