The Chris Paul era in New Orleans isn’t over — yet. A proposed blockbuster three-team trade of the New Orleans Hornets’ point guard involving the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets was nixed Thursday, according to league sources.

Apparently, several owners in the league thought the deal was too beneficial for the Lakers, who would have paired Paul with Kobe Bryant. There was concern the Lakers, who have won two of the past three NBA championships, would get an unfair competitive advantage.

NBA Commissioner David Stern apparently stepped in after hearing complaints from several owners attending the league’s board of governors meeting Thursday in New York to ratify the new labor agreement. The NBA has owned the Hornets for nearly a year and is seeking local ownership.

But an NBA spokesman denies that owners killed the deal. The Paul trade wasn’t even discussed at the board of governors meeting, spokesman Tim Franks said. He said the league office declined to make the trade for basketball reasons.

Had Paul gone to the Lakers, the Hornets would have acquired guards Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic and forward Luis Scola of the Rockets and Lakers forward Lamar Odom in addition to a draft pick.

In turn, Houston would have acquired Lakers forward Pau Gasol, filling their need for a big man after Yao Ming’s retirement.

After the league kiboshed the deal, Paul tweeted “Wow.”

Now Friday makes for an awkward moment.

General Manager Dell Demps didn’t want Paul’s uncertain future to cast a cloud over the season as the Carmelo Anthony saga did last year in Denver. Ultimately, Anthony got his way and was traded to the New York Knicks.

Training camp opens Friday, but Paul isn’t expected at the Alario Center in Westwego, according to league sources.

With Paul staying put, the Hornets still have only five players under contract. Demps is expected to address the news media Friday for the first time since the lockout began July 1.

Sources said Demps will continue to seek trade partners for Paul, who wouldn’t commit to the team after he was offered a five-year deal worth $100 million. Paul can opt out of his contract, which will pay him about $16 million this season.

The Hornets have had serious trade discussions with the Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors. Some teams have been scared off from entering the Paul sweepstakes because of the threat he might not sign an extension. If Paul signs an extension with another team, he would be forfeiting $26 million, as the most a competing team can offer him is $74 million over four years.

Paul could file a grievance against the league through the players union.

Apparently, there is a faction of owners who continues to push for competitive balance even though the labor agreement is designed to help foster it.

The Hornets had been listening to offers for Paul since last week, and they began to proceed more intensely after Paul indicated in Monday’s meeting with Demps he was not interested in signing a long-term extension to remain in New Orleans, sources said.

Paul has been with the franchise for six seasons and was the fourth overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft.

Paul has been pushing for the Hornets build more talent around him since 2009-10 season when they failed to make the playoffs. The Hornets made a surprising playoff run last season but were ousted by the Lakers in the first round.

We don’t yet know the full details of the agreement between the NBA owners and players, but we do know the tentative plan is to start the season on Christmas Day, presumably with the previously scheduled contest at Staples Center between the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls as one of the games, a great showcase between Kobe Bryant and reigning league MVP Derrick Rose.

The NBA on Sunday night released a basic outline of the proposed 66-game schedule, which is understandably a little more compacted than normal. For instance, the original Lakers schedule had 56 games scheduled from Christmas Day through the end of the season on April 18, a span of 116 days. The new schedule is slated to end eight days later, on April 26, 2012, meaning the clubs will have to squeeze 66 games into 124 days.

With the new schedule, teams will play 48 of their 66 games against their own conference, compare to the standard 52 of 82 games. Teams will play six teams within their own conference four times each, and play the other eight teams in their conference three times each. The 18 games against the other conference will be comprised of a pair of games against three teams, and single games against the other 12 teams in the opposite conference.

The Lakers had similar winning percentages last season against the Western Conference (.692) and Eastern Conference (.700), so a schedule more concentrated with games against the west doesn’t figure to affect them much. The Los Angeles Clippers, however, fared better against the east (.433) than they did against the west (.365), so perhaps playing fewer games against the presumably weaker conference would hurt them.

Under normal circumstances, NBA teams don’t play three days in a row, but given the time constraints in the upcoming shortened season, all teams will be subject to at least one back-to-back-to-back stretch, with no more than three such occurrences per team. It will be interesting to see how certain teams react to three games in three nights. A young team like the Clippers, with Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and DeAndre Jordan likely to be fresher than an older team like the Boston Celtics.

The playoffs are scheduled to start on April 28, two days after the regular season ends, with the NBA Finals slated to end no later than June 26, 2012. There is the possibility of playoff games on back-to-back nights in the second round.

For more NBA news and notes, be sure to read about the Lakers at Silver Screen and Roll, and the Clippers at Clips Nation.

Eric Musselman is the new coach of the Los Angeles D-Fenders, the D-League affiliate of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The team made the announcement Thursday. Musselman, former
Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings head coach, has now
worked in some capacity for every NBA franchise in California. He
also has worked in the Clippers organization. He is currently
coaching the Venezuelan national team and using crutches for an
Achilles injury.

The D-Fenders are returning to the D-League this season following a one-year hiatus. Musselman spent last season with the Reno Bighorns – affiliate of the Warriors and Kings – and guided them to the D-League playoffs.

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Kim Kardashian, along with  sisters Khloe and Kourtney and mother Kris Jenner, have always proclaimed that the events on their various reality shows on E! Entertainment, including “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “Khloe & Lamar,” are real, unscripted and truthful.

That declaration provoked the intriguing question: How would “Khloe & Lamar,” which follows husband-and-wife Khloe Kardashian and Los Angeles Lakers star Lamar Odom, handle Odom’s and the Lakers’ fall from grace in the NBA playoffs: the four-game sweep of the Lakers by the Dallas Mavericks and especially Odom’s ejection from Game 4 following his flagrant foul on the Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitski, an act that basketball commentators called outrageous.

That question was finally addressed in the season finale Monday of ‘Khloe and Lamar.” And despite the claim of reality and honesty, the answer, to use a basketball term, was “a brick.” The playoff woes were not specifically addressed and Odom’s thuggish act in the final game was totally ignored.

The subject of the Lakers and their fate finally emerged toward the end of the episode when the couple, along with friends and family members, sat down for dinner. Odom’s friend Jaime says bluntly that he doesn’t want to be insulting but asks Odom how he’s feeling after “the disappointing season.” Odom initially seems taken aback and a bit miffed.

Khloe quickly chimes in that she thinks her husband had a “great season,” pointing out that he won the NBA’s sixth man award. Replies Jaime: “Yeah, individually he had a great season. But it’s a team sport.”

Odom says, “I can’t describe it. I’m probably still in shock a little bit. When you experience winning on a certain level, nothing can replace that.” He adds that “it’s probably what we’ve needed to rev us back up. The crazy thing is that you don’t realize how much time you don’t have.”

Whatever that means.

The lack of candor about the Lakers on “Khloe & Lamar” may indicate that the show will fall far short of its potential to provide an insightful glimpse into the personal life of an NBA player. But if you want to know whether Khloe Kardashian is healthy enough to bear children, or if her brother Rob impregnated a girl after a one-night hookup of unprotected sex, ‘Khloe & Lamar” is your show.

And those lingering questions about whether Odom’s participation in a reality show in the middle of the Lakers’ season is a good idea will have to wait.

Well, there’s always next season — maybe.

What did you think of the season finale of “Khloe & Lamar?”

RELATED:

‘Khloe and Lamar”: A jinx on Lamar Odom and the Lakers?

Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian talk about juggling the Lakers and reality TV

– Greg Braxton

Photo: Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian — before the Lakers’ playoff woes. Credit: Juan Ocampo/Andrew D. Bernstein Associates Photography

By GREG BEACHAM
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers reached a deal in principle with former Cleveland coach Mike Brown on Wednesday to succeed Phil Jackson, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the Lakers hadn’t made the official announcement. ESPN, which employed Brown as an analyst this season, first reported Brown had been hired.

Brown emerged as the front-runner for the daunting task of succeeding the 11-time NBA champion Jackson with one of the NBA’s iconic franchises after a strong interview last weekend.

Rather than promoting one of Jackson’s assistant coaches, the Lakers are changing course after an abrupt end to their two-year reign and the departure of Jackson, the coach with the most championship rings in NBA history.

Jackson retired after the Dallas Mavericks ousted the defending two-time champion Lakers from the second round of the playoffs earlier this month.

Although Kobe Bryant endorsed Jackson assistant coach Brian Shaw for the vacancy, Jim Buss – the Lakers’ executive vice president of player personnel and the son of owner Jerry Buss – became intrigued by Brown after Saturday’s interview.

A respected young tactician with a strong coaching pedigree, Brown also has ample experience in big games, even if he couldn’t guide LeBron James to a title.

“I think it’s great,” James said in Miami, where he’s preparing for Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.

The 41-year-old Brown led the Cavaliers to the 2007 NBA finals and won 272 games in five years in Cleveland, becoming the most successful coach in franchise history while compiling the league’s best regular-season record in each of his last two seasons.

But the 2009 NBA coach of the year was fired last spring following the Cavs’ dissension-filled exit from the second round of the postseason, and James left for Miami a few weeks later.

Although James was critical of Brown’s strategies during their final playoff run together, the two-time NBA MVP strongly endorsed his former coach.

“Mike Brown is a great coach,” James said. “He brought us success that we hadn’t had before in that city, and it started with his defensive concepts. He brought in a defensive mindset that we didn’t have. Fifty-plus wins, he was coach of the year, he got us to the (NBA) finals, won us the Eastern Conference finals … because of him and his coaching staff. I respect him. He definitely helped me become who I am today.”

Brown’s background in defense apparently intrigues the Lakers, whose last two title runs were built on sturdy defense led by Bryant and 7-foot shot-blocker Andrew Bynum, a favorite of Jim Buss. Brown is a former assistant to San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich and Dallas coach Rick Carlisle, who employed Brown as his defensive coordinator in Indiana when Lakers forward Ron Artest was named the NBA’s top defensive player in 2004.

But Brown’s reputation as an offensive coach was savaged during his time with the Cavaliers, who often appeared to be running a 1-on-5 scheme for James.

Bryant, who will turn 33 before next season, has similar ball-dominating tendencies – but he also has more talent around him than James ever had in Cleveland, from 7-foot All-Star forward Pau Gasol to a bench led by Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom.

During an interview with Sirius XM Radio on Tuesday, Jerry Buss said the Lakers “won’t continue exclusively with the triangle” offense championed by Jackson.

The Lakers also showed interest in veteran coach Rick Adelman, who left the Houston Rockets last month, and Mike Dunleavy, the former Lakers and Clippers coach. Shaw, a former Lakers guard and a top assistant coach during Jackson’s tenure, was the favorite candidate among the current Lakers, with Derek Fisher and Bynum joining Bryant in throwing their support behind their former teammate.

But the Buss family has a history of idiosyncratic coaching hires, often from outside the organization. When Jackson left the Lakers for a year in 2004, they replaced him with former Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who resigned midway through his only season because of health issues.

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has said the club is likely to return with largely the same veteran core that won the past two NBA titles before falling short this season. Los Angeles already has more than $85 million in salary committed to eight players for next season, likely meaning the Lakers will have the NBA’s largest payroll again next season.

LOS ANGELES – A person with knowledge of the discussions says the Los Angeles Lakers have reached a deal in principle with former Cleveland coach Mike Brown to succeed Phil Jackson.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the Lakers hadn’t made the official announcement.

ESPN, which employed Brown as an analyst this season, first reported Brown had been hired.

Brown emerged as the front-runner for the daunting task of succeeding the 11-time NBA champion Jackson after a strong interview last weekend with the Lakers, who apparently are looking for a new approach after an abrupt end to their championship reign.

Jackson retired after the Dallas Mavericks ousted the defending two-time champion Lakers.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Lakers are in serious talks with former Cleveland coach Mike Brown about their coaching vacancy, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.

The person spoke to The Associated Press early Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the Lakers’ coaching search wasn’t complete yet.

ESPN, which employed Brown as an analyst this season, reported later Wednesday that Brown had been hired. The Lakers made no announcement, and Brown didn’t immediately return a phone call.

Brown emerged as the front-runner for the daunting task of succeeding Phil Jackson after a strong interview last weekend with the Lakers, who apparently are looking for a new approach after an abrupt end to their championship reign.

Jackson, the 11-time NBA champion coach, retired earlier this month after the Dallas Mavericks ousted the defending two-time champion Lakers from the second round of the playoffs.

Although Kobe Bryant endorsed Jackson assistant coach Brian Shaw for the vacancy, Jim Buss — the Lakers’ executive vice president of player personnel and the son of owner Jerry Buss — appears more interested in Brown. A respected young tactician with a strong coaching pedigree, Brown also has ample experience in big games, even if he couldn’t guide LeBron James to a title.

“I think it’s great,” James said in Miami, where he’s preparing for Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.

The 41-year-old Brown led the Cavaliers to the 2007 NBA finals and won 272 games in five years, becoming the most successful coach in franchise history while compiling the league’s best regular-season record in each of his last two seasons.

But the 2009 NBA coach of the year was fired last spring following the Cavs’ dissension-filled exit from the second round of the postseason, and James left for Miami a few weeks later.

Although James was critical of Brown’s strategies during their final playoff run together, the two-time NBA MVP strongly endorsed his former coach.

“Mike Brown is a great coach,” James said. “He brought us success that we hadn’t had before in that city, and it started with his defensive concepts. He brought in a defensive mindset that we didn’t have. Fifty-plus wins, he was coach of the year, he got us to the (NBA) finals, won us the Eastern Conference finals … because of him and his coaching staff. I respect him. He definitely helped me become who I am today.”

Brown’s background in defense apparently intrigues the Lakers, whose last two title runs were built on sturdy defense led by Bryant and 7-foot shot-blocker Andrew Bynum, a favorite of Jim Buss. Brown is a former assistant to San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich and Dallas coach Rick Carlisle, who employed Brown as his defensive coordinator in Indiana when Lakers forward Ron Artest was named the NBA’s top defensive player.

Brown’s reputation as an offensive coach was savaged during his time with the Cavaliers, who often appeared to be running a 1-on-5 scheme for James.

During an interview with Sirius XM Radio on Tuesday, Jerry Buss said his club was “very close” to hiring Jackson’s replacement. Buss also said the Lakers “won’t continue exclusively with the triangle” offense championed by Jackson.

The Lakers also have shown interest in veteran coach Rick Adelman, who left the Houston Rockets last month, and Mike Dunleavy, the former Lakers and Clippers coach. Adelman is thought to be the Lakers’ second choice after Brown because his experience could attract the attention of a veteran roster.

Shaw, a former Lakers guard and a top assistant coach during Jackson’s tenure, was the favorite candidate among the current Lakers, with Derek Fisher and Bynum joining Bryant in throwing their support behind their former teammate.

But the Buss family has a history of idiosyncratic coaching hires, often from outside the organization. When Jackson left the Lakers for a year in 2004, they replaced him with former Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who resigned midway through his only season because of health issues.

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has said the club is likely to return with largely the same veteran core that won the past two NBA titles before falling short this season. Los Angeles already has more than $85 million in salary committed to eight players for next season, likely meaning the Lakers will have the NBA’s largest payroll again next season.

___

AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.

The Los Angeles Lakers have narrowed their coaching search to former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown and former Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman, according to sources, with current Lakers assistant Brian Shaw, the preferred choice of most of the team’s current players, still in the mix. But the Lakers’ insistence on holding firm to a lower salary for their next head coach has kept the search open.

The Lakers want to significantly reduce the salary they pay their next head coach after paying Phil Jackson $10 million in his final season and $12.5 million the previous season. The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the Lakers were not willing to go above $5 million in salary next season. While Brown is not expecting to make $7 million a year as Doc Rivers will be getting from Boston starting next season (Rivers signed a five-year, $35 million deal last week), the next tier of coaches, led by New York’s Mike D’Antoni (four years, $24 million), don’t have Jackson or Rivers’ pedigree, while Brown has a 2007 Finals appearance and two Eastern Conference finals appearances to his credit.

But the Lakers are adamant about maintaining their salary ceiling, and seem to be looking for the candidate that will accept those terms as opposed to picking a candidate and negotiating a deal with him.

Yahoo! Sports reported Tuesday evening that the Lakers were in serious negotiations with Brown, who has spent this year working in television with ESPN after being fired as coach of the Cavaliers after Cleveland’s second-round loss to Boston in the 2010 playoffs.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss had said earlier in the day in a radio interview on XM Sirius Radio that the team was “very close” to hiring a new coach, and seemed to dismiss the notion that the team would hire Shaw because several players, including Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, had endorsed his candidacy.

“Obviously, we have to select somebody who has a reputation that players would be happy with,” Buss said in the interview, on Playboy Radio, with local broadcaster Michael Eaves and Lakers executive Bonnie-Jill Laflin. “But to ask a direct player to select a particular coach, that’s general manager territory.”

Brown, 41, was 272-138 in five seasons in Cleveland, reaching the second round of the playoffs each season. But after the Cavaliers’ six-game loss to Boston in which the Cavs played poorly in the last two games, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert decided to fire Brown. That decision helped lead to former team president Danny Ferry’s departure from the club as well, and James, famously, followed both out the door in July.

Adelman, 64, moved into eighth place on the NBA’s all-time coaching victories list this season, finishing the year with 945 wins, one better than Bill Fitch and seven ahead of Red Auerbach. In 20 seasons as a head coach, Adelman is 945-616 (.605), with only four losing seasons. His teams have made the postseason 16 times, and he’s reached the Finals twice, both times with Portland (1990 and 1992). This season may have been one of his best coaching jobs; Houston had hoped to have Yao Ming back this season after he’d missed all of the 2009-10 season with a stress fracture in his left ankle, but Yao only played five games before suffering another stress fracture in the left ankle that shelved him the rest of the year.

But Adelman remade the Rockets on the fly, turning them from a team that was planning to pound the ball inside to one that got its scoring from the perimeter with guards Kevin Martin and Kyle Lowry. Houston didn’t make the playoffs, but was one of the hottest teams in the league down the stretch, going 17-8 after the All-Star break. Nonetheless, the Rockets made next to no attempt to re-sign him and the club announced after the season it and Adelman had mutually agreed to part ways.

Shaw has been a Lakers assistant for five years, gaining the respect of players as someone who can speak candidly to players and challenge them. He played with the team from 1999 to 2003, helping the team win three straight NBA titles. He has said that he would maintain the triangle offense that Jackson used both in Los Angeles and Chicago, though he would tweak it some. Buss said that he expected the team to play some triangle next season but also expected some changes in the offense.

The Lakers have moved away from veteran coaches Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Dunleavy, the ex-Clippers coach and general manager who led the Lakers to the 1991 Finals.