Who really is on Chris Paul’s trade demand list?

Chris Paul wants to get traded, we get it. What we don’t get is where, exactly.

The first report from Ken Berger of CBSSports.com said the Knicks, Magic and Lakers were on the list. But that’s not what ESPN’s Chris Broussard heard, and he is probably as well connected with LeBron’s people and the marketing firm LRMR as anyone (and Paul signed with LRMR recently).

Sources told Broussard on Thursday that the Knicks and Magic are on Paul’s list of preferred destinations, but the Lakers are not. Sources told Broussard that the Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks are also in the running if Paul were to be traded.

All four of those teams make some sense (although could Paul and Brandon Roy, two guys who like the ball in their hands, really co-exist well?). More sense than the Lakers, anyway. New York and Orlando make a ton of sense, great pick-and-roll partners in those cities.

Personally, I’ve said the Hornets should not trade Paul. But if they do, they are not going to just want to move their biggest star -- the price is going to be taking on Emeka Okafor or one of the other bad contracts weighing down the Hornets roster. If they are going to rebuild, they will want to clear the decks.

That is going to mean a lot of moving parts in any deal. Expect it to take time, a long time. Or the Hornets could just go through the motions of a deal they never will make.