by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni
Chris Paul has an important meeting with his current employer sometime today, during which Paul and his agent are expected to inform the Hornets that CP3 no longer wants to work for them. Chris reportedly has a list of teams he’d like to play for next season, and the Orlando Magic are supposedly on this list.
Stan Van Gundy, Otis Smith and the rest of the decision-makers in Orlando aren’t exactly losing sleep over the possibility of landing the League’s best point guard. Well, that’s what they’re saying publicly, anyway.
The Orlando Sentinel and FanHouse captured the Magic coach and GM’s skepticism:
Like everyone else, coach Stan Van Gundy has heard and read the scuttlebutt that connects the dots between the Orlando Magic and New Orleans Hornets all-star point guard Chris Paul. “Much ado about nothing,” Van Gundy said.
All you need to know is this: Van Gundy doesn’t expect that General Manager Otis Smith will interrupt Van Gundy’s on-going tour of major-league ballparks any time soon to prepare him for a long-shot blockbuster trade. As far as the Magic are concerned — Smith labels the Paul saga as “rumors” — they just happen to be caught up in the speculation.
“We are only involved in this story because someone said he wants to be traded and someone said he wants to come to Orlando,” Van Gundy said. “It’s a New Orleans and Chris Paul story.”
Would he seriously want to play in Orlando (or anywhere else, for that matter), Chris Paul has no leverage here — he’s under contract with the Hornets, and cannot opt-out until the 2013 season — so SVG and co. are right not to fret too much over the rumors.
To say that the Magic and other teams around the League aren’t intrigued (and making plans just in case CP3 can somehow extract himself from New Orleans), however, would be silly and dishonest.
