If the reports are true, superstar point guard Chris Paul will be suiting up next to Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles this next NBA season.

Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that the New Orleans Hornets have started telling other teams that they plan to send CP3 to the Lakers in a trade for Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. Here’s the tweet:

The Hornets have started to inform teams that they’re sending Chris Paul to the Lakers for Bynum and Odom, league sources tell Y! Sports.

UPDATE: Ack!  As soon I hit the publish button – things have changed!  According to Yahoo! Sports. The trade now involves Pau Gasol in a HUGE 3-team trade:

…the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets, and New Orleans Hornets have struck a deal that would send MVP-level point guard Chris Paul to the Lakers… In the deal, Houston would ship Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, and Goran Dragic to the Hornets and receive Pau Gasol in return from the Lakers. Los Angeles would also have to send Lamar Odom to the Hornets, and this is about as massive as these things get.

Ah, I miss the NBA, blockbuster trades, and slam dunks. I am tired of recreating NBA-style dunks on my adjustable basketball goal. To discuss NBA trades, go to our NBA Forum.

The 2011 NBA playoffs is a who’s who, a showcase of the NBA’s best point guards.

As of this writing, the the top-scoring guards in the playoffs this year aren’t prolific shooting guards Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen or Dwyane Wade – they’re superstar point guards Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Chris Paul.

(Discuss NBA Playoffs in our NBA Forum)

Interbasket ranks the point guards in this year’s NBA playoffs thus far…

1. Derrick Rose continues his amazing, potentially-MVP year upping his scoring in the playoffs to a Jordan-esque 32.7 points a game, along with nearly 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2.3 steals a game as the Bulls take a 3-0 lead over the Indiana Pacers.

2. Russell Westbrook – When you talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder, you are forced to talk about Russell Westbrook,  who is nearly as unstoppable as teammate Kevin Durant. Westbrook is hitting for 26 points per game, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds while shooting 60% from three and nearly 90% from the line.

3. Chris Paul – You, the one that doesn’t live in New Orleans, you almost forgot about Chris Paul, didn’t you?  Not until he whipped that one-handed baseball pass to Aaron Gray, did you remember just how great a point guard the 6-3 bowling ball is.

Paul dissected the Laker’s lazy defense to a tune of 33 points, 14 assists, 7 rebounds, and 4 steals to a game one upset of Los Angeles. For the series, Paul is averaging 25 points, 10.3 assists, and 5 rebounds.

4. Jason Kidd – Remember when Jason Kidd was called “ason” because he had no “J”?  Well, it’s still not pretty, but Kidd has turned himself into a sniper in the Dallas-Portland series, shooting 45% from behind the arc to the tune of 16 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and hitting almost 4 threes a game.

5. Rajon Rondo is destroying the New York Knicks. The herky-jerky guard for the Boston Celtics is putting up 18 points, 12 assists, and 8 rebounds including a triple-double that set the franchise playoff record for assists (20). Rondo and Chris Paul are the only players avergaing a double-double with assists.

And that’s no disrespect to veteran points Jameer Nelson or Andre Miller, or up-and-coming PGs Mike Conley, Ty Lawson, and Jrue Holiday, who is making a splash in this year’s playoffs. Despite being down 0-3 to the Miami Heat, the second year player from UCLA is averaging 17 points, 5 assists and 2 steals.

Discuss the NBA Playoffs in our NBA forum.

This week’s quick roundup of the player performances around the world during the last few days includes discussion about Hasheem Thabeet‘s two assists, Aleksandr Marić’s monster game, Von Wafer’s European adventure, Darius Songaila’s sharp-shooting, FIBA chooses the wild cards, Danilo Gallinari off the bench and more. Discuss the NBA in our forum.

• It was a good night for Hasheem Thabeet. After 19 games, and 200 minutes of play, Thabeet finally registered his first assist of his NBA career when he passed for two assists in a win over the Miami Heat. The 7-3 center also played a career-high 20 minutes and blocked a career high 5 shots in that game.

• A week after Olympicos severed ties with Von Wafer, head coach Panagiotis Giannakis speaks out, says that Wafer wasn’t up for the challenge: “Von Wafer had a totally different philosophy than ours and could not adapt to the philosophy of the team.” said Giannakis. ”If someone is not up for it even to try, then he better stop doing it alltogether. It makes the rest of the (players) nervous.” See the full piece at Talkbasket.

• Lebron James farts! He’s human!

• After a perfect 6-6 shooting in a loss to the Mavericks last night, New Orleans’ Darius Songaila has shot 72.5% from the field in the last seven games; hitting 29/40 from the field. For the season, the 6-9 Lithuanian is hitting 55% of his shots.

• Good thing the Mavericks had J.J. Barea last night as German superstar Dirk Nowitzki scored a season-low 10 points. However the 6-0 guard from Puerto Rico scored 19 points in the first half in their eventual win over the New Orleans Hornets. Barea hit 10-13 shots and ended the game with just 23 points. His career-high is 26 points.

• FIBA announced the four final countries for the 2010 World Cup of basketball. Germany, Lebanon, Lithuania, and Russia each failed to qualify through their regional championships, but the international federation decided that these four nations would best represent basketball competitively and economically.

• No surprise that Australian-born Serbian Aleksandr Marić was the Euroleague’s MVP for week seven. The 7-0 center registered an amazing 49 performance index ranking, leading Partizan Belgrade to a win over Efes Pilsen. The 25-year old scored 34 points, mostly on putbacks and dunks, and pulled in 16 rebounds.

• Danilo Gallinari missed one game recently because of a sore arm and sat out the game in which the Knicks upset the Atlanta Hawks 114-107. When the 6-10 Italian returned the next game, he found himself coming off the bench. The Knicks have won four straight, three with Gallinari off the bench, and five out of six. If the Knicks can continue even a sniff of that success, look for Gallinari to keep coming off the pine.

Talkbasket reports that New Orleans Hornet’s forward Peja Stojaković may have had a

late night tryst with porn star Sienna West:

“Predrag Stojakovic allegedly spent a ‘romantic’ night with porn star Sienna West who in turn told the world about it through her twitter account, which was later mysteriously deleted.”

Apparently, West had posted a video online of her supposedly driving to Peja’s house for a late-night rendezvous. Later, after the alleged meeting, West went to her Twitter account and made some flattering comments about Peja’s lower half.

Of course, no real evidence has appeared linking Stojakovic and Miller, just Miller’s video and Twitter messages. Without evidence or anything solid confirmed, this post falls under the rumor category. And looks like West is backtracking.

“After all the fuzz, Sienna West came back with another tweet, denying that the meeting ever took place.”

Stojakovic is currently married to Aleka Kamila, a Greek model, and has two children, Andrej and Mila. Go to Talkbasket for images, video, and the screenshot of the Twitter message.

• According to the San Antonio Express-News, Manu Ginóbili has a groin injury that will likely force the 6-6 Argentinian out for 3-5 games. His groin injury is unrelated to the hamstring troubles he has been battling the last couple of seasons.

• After suffering a shooting slump in early November, Rudy Fernández has been hitting a groove as of late, hitting 23-43 shots in the last six games (53.5%); and reaching double-figures in four of those contests. Portland has won four of their last six games.

• Without Hornet’s floor leader Chris Paul, Peja Stojakovic hit a season-high seven threes last night in a win over the Phoenix Suns Thursday night, who had the league’s best record. Stojakovic recorded 25 points and a season-high 13 rebounds.

• Dirk Nowitzki has led the Dallas Mavericks to a 10-3 record, under the radar it seems. the 7-0 German has scored at least 20 points in all but one game this season, and is averaging 26.9 points, 8.9 rebounds, and blocking shots at a career-high pace with 1.6 a game.

• It’s been a frustrating season for Ronny Turiaf, who has spent nearly the entire season injured with a sprained right knee suffered on October 30th. The prognosis may say day-to-day, but it looks as if the 6-11 French shot-blocker will likely not see action until December.

• Danilo Gallinari recorded his first scoreless game of the season after scoring in double-figures in eight of the Knick’s first ten games.  The 6-10 Gallinari missed both his shot attempts in a season-low 16 minutes. The good news? The Knicks won their second game of the season,  110-103 over the Indiana Pacers. Gallinari had double figures in just six of the 28 games he played during his rookie season.

• Andrew Bogut will miss up to four weeks of action after suffering a lower left leg sprain and contusion. The injury is similar to the one the 7-0 Aussie suffered two seasons ago. Bogut was having his best NBA season with 16.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.4 blocked shots in 9 games.

• Even if Anderson Varejão goes on to average 20 points and 10 rebounds off the bench for the Cleveland Cavs, the 6-10 Brazilian’s season will still be remembered for being Dwyane Wade‘s dunk prop.

Two NBA teams re-signed their backup centers.

Yeah, it’s the NBA off-season, so this qualifies as news.

The New Orleans Hornets brought back Kiwi Sean Marks. The 6-foot-10, 250-pound New Zealand native averaged 3.2 points and 3.1 rebounds in 14.1 minutes for the Hornets last season.

The 34-year old Marks is a nine-year NBA veteran journeyman, having spent time with four other teams: Miami, Phoenix, San Antonio and Toronto.  He was the first player from New Zealand to play in the NBA.

Nuggets sign Petro
The Denver Nuggets re-signed Johan Petro of France to a one-year, league-minimum deal for $825,000.

The 23-year old center spent his first three and a half seasons with Oklahoma City/Seattle Sonics before being traded to the Nuggets during the 2008-09 season for backup guard Chucky Atkins.

Petro was recently cut from the French National Team in favor of Ian Mahinmi, another NBA player.

“We decided not to keep (Petro) for more defensive reasons than offense. We believed that Ian Mahinmi had a profile that had more mobility and gives an advantage to the national team.” said France’s head coach Vincent Collet.

The 7-0 Petro has NBA career averages of 5.4 points and 4.3 rebounds in 270 games with the Nuggets and Oklahoma City/Seattle Sonics.  The Parisian native was drafted in the first round of the 2005 NBA draft with the 25th pick overall.