ESPN has reported that the Rockets would trade for Chris Paul without him signing an extension to stay here long term. This conversation blew up twitter, so I think it's fitting to bring it to TDS.

Mike, Patrick, Red94, BD, and myself were having a discussion on whether or not we'd trade for Paul, knowing that he would not likely sign an extension here.

I'll let the others voice their opinions on here, but I'm completely opposed to trading for CP3 w/o the extension. We do not know 100% that Paul would not sign an extension with us, but it's very unlikely that he would. He's made it clear that he wants to go to New York, or to a team that already has a star player.

Basically, we would be trading our core players for a rental of Paul, then he would likely bolt to New York to join Carmelo and Amar'e.

That's just my opinion, but it does seem all but guaranteed that Paul would not sign a long term deal with us. I'd rather just keep the pieces we have, and then throw a lot of money at a top tier FA in 2012.

If this helps at all, next year's draft is very deep, and an impact player or two could fall to the 10-14 area, assuming we finish just outside the 8th or 9th seed.

EDIT: After reading this, I sound incredibly bias and don't at all give an argument as to why trading for Paul w/o an extension would be a positive, so I'm simply going to give y'all a pros and cons assessment of the trade.

Pros:

- Would definitely be a playoff team.

- More national attention.

- Possibility that we could sign Paul to a long-term contract if he enjoys his time here.

Cons:

- We would have to trade our young and talented players (and possibly picks) in order to get Paul.

- If Paul does in fact go to New York or another team after his time here, our roster would be crippled from the trade, and we would have to fully commit to rebuilding.

- We would look like idiots for trading half of our team for renting Paul.

'Splain yourself in the comments below as to why you chose the option that you chose.