The news had already arrived Saturday but lately it’s better to wait for official confirmation: the Los Angeles Lakers traded Lamar Odom (Photo ©Bridget Samuels) to the Dallas Mavericks along with a second pick in exchange for a first pick and a $8.9 million trade exception.

The agreement between the Lakers at Mavericks was reached when there’s still the controversy concerning the deal called off by the NBA between Lakers and New Orleans Hornets involving Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol in exchange for Chris Paul. The Hornets had also reached an agreement with the Houston Rockets to trade Pau Gasol in exchange for Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and Luis Scola.

The New Orleans Hornets are in a very unusual situation: the franchise was in financial crisis and about a year ago the NBA bought it from its owners. It’s for this reason that the majority of NBA owners was able to object to the deal between the Lakers and Hornets and call it off.

The Hornets could obtain very good players but the Lakers would’ve obtained another superstar and they would have got rid of two big contracts taking only one in exchange so they would’ve saved on the luxury tax. This tax is paid by the teams that spend the most to the others so there’s a suspicion that the owners who rejected the deal between Lakers and Hornets acted in conflict of interest.

Now there are rumors about a deal between Clippers and Hornets involving Chris Paul in exchange for players of lesser value than the ones they would have received in the trade with Lakers and Rockets. If that deal will be done the controversy will resume with even greater strength.

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Lamar Odom reacted with shock and surprise at the news that the Los Angeles Lakers wanted to send him to the New Orleans Hornets and after the agreement was called off his relationship with the management seemed damaged. At that point the Lakers sent him to the Dallas Mavericks, who lost Tyson Chandler so they needed a big man.

Now the Los Angeles Lakers will try to reach an agreement with the Orlando Magic to obtain Dwight Howard and with the trade exception they can get from another team a player with a salary less than $9 million in exchange for only a pick in the draft.

However, Kobe Bryant has already expressed his displeasure for the trade of Lamar Odom, who has been a major player in the conquest of the last two Los Angeles Lakers titles. Evidently, most of the NBA owners don’t want Chris Paul to go to the Lakers, therefore the California franchise must obtain Dwight Howard to hope to get stronger and to compete again for the NBA title.