The woes of the Lakers' backcourt and bench have been discussed ad nauseam this year, whether it has been Derek Fisher being Derek Fisher, Darius Morris struggling with rookie issues, Andrew Goudelock being overly tentative before Wednesday's game, Jason Kapono being terrible, or Steve Blake's absence causing all of the aforementioned problems. Small wonderment why the Lakers FO really wanted Chris Paul, but let us digress. That the Lakers would seek to rectify this is obvious, and courtesy of Hoopsworld's Alex Kennedy, we have one focus of their attention:

The Los Angeles Lakers have expressed interest in Gilbert Arenas, according to sources close to the situation. The 30-year-old is an unrestricted free agent after being amnestied by the Orlando Magic last month. No signing is imminent, but the Lakers have reached out to the veteran point guard.

Arenas represents an interesting quandary. There is no doubt that he was an unbelievably putrid player for the Magic last year, putting up a 47.1 TS% while continuing to call his number over and over again -- see his 22.7 usage rate, which is more possessions than Andrew Bynum or Pau Gasol use per game this year. That noted, you always have to be entranced by someone who is only a year or two removed from being one of the game's most electrifying players. The Lakers need a perimeter creator to complement Kobe in the worst possible way, as well as another player who can operate off the pick-and-roll. Arenas certainly can provide that if he has even a smidgen of his former dominance, but whether he does is an open question. During the summer, he worked with renowned trainer Tim Grover, who helped Tracy McGrady make a resurgence last year, so there is no question in that regard that Arenas is making the best effort possible to do the same.

One way or the other though, Arenas is definitely a low-risk, high-reward proposition, as he would come to L.A. for the minimum, and Kennedy reports that he would be all too happy to do so. At this stage, with no other clear options to upgrade in the backcourt, it probably wouldn't hurt to see if Arenas has anything left in the tank. If the Lakers did sign him, however, they would have to waive a player to make room for him. Rookies Darius Morris and Andrew Goudelock are probably safe and Derrick Caracter put up a nice game in the D-League recently; that the team kept him despite his injury shows that they likely are interested in keeping him. The most likely candidate then, barring a Luke Walton buyout, is probably Jason Kapono, who is on a minimum deal and has not played well to put it kindly. We will keep you updated on any new developments.

Follow this author on Twitter @brosales12.

Throughout the franchise's illustrious history, the Los Angeles Lakers have a history of pulling off some of the most audacious personnel moves in sports. From the moment they traded for Wilt Chamberlain, the Lakers have routinely brought in, and shipped out, the game's biggest names. They traded for Kareem Abdul Jabaar. They let Gail Goodrich walk, and were compensated with a draft pick that turned into Magic Johnson. And, in the most relevant case of forward thinking to today's team possible, they traded Vlade Divac for a kid out of high school named Kobe Bryant. In doing so, they freed up enough cap space to sign Shaquille O'neal. Without that single trade, the NBA looks like a much different place these days. But that's not the end of the story. They ended up trading Shaq, who was not far removed from being the best player on the planet at the time of the trade, and netted back assets that they were routinely killed for at the time. One of those assets, Caron Butler, became Kwame Brown, who became Pau Gasol. The other main asset in that trade was the dearly departed Lamar Odom, and Pau and Lamar became the 2nd and 3rd cornerstones to another championship era in L.A.

Now LO is gone, shipped out to Dallas for virtually nothing. It is likely that the move is not the end game, but instead a stepping stone to the next big play. Maybe the Lakers will now turn around and deal for Dwight Howard. Maybe they have some other audacious plan. Maybe the 2017 1st round draft pick from Dallas will end up in the top three because Dallas is an aging team that will eventually need to rebuild. I have no idea what this Laker team will look like in a few days, to say nothing of a few years from now. I only know that whatever happens needs to have a few things fall into place, or else the Lakers will be one of the major losers of this bizarre off-season. Standing pat, with a championship squad with plenty of motivation to play their best ball, was not a bad option. Instead, it's clear the franchise has once again decided to role the dice.

This is what the Lakers do, and it has rarely (if ever) not worked out for them. But when you are stuck in the middle, balancing on the smallest piece of wire, it can't help but be scary to look down and see nothing but air to cushion the fall.

Keep it moving.

Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix is tweeting that it's the Rockets sweetening the deal for the Hornets. They must really want Pau (to go with Nene) bad.

@ChrisMannixSI:

"As SI reported last night, Rockets sweetening the @CP3 deal with young players. Unclear who is involved" yet.

Click the link to read CBS' Ken Berger's report on the details of the revised proposed trade between the Lakers, Hornets, and Rockets.

CBS.com:

"Houston would still get Pau Gasol from the Lakers in the three-team swap, while the Rockets would send Luis Scola and Kevin Martin to the Hornets, as in the original version that was killed by commissioner David Stern in his role as final decision-maker on major personnel moves for the league-owned Hornets. It wasn't immediately clear how the Hornets were satisfying the league directive to acquire young players and valuable draft picks in the deal, but one minor tweak that New Orleans GM Dell Demps was trying to add was the inclusion of second-year forward Devin Ebanks from the Lakers, sources said."

Twitter:

"Now appears Lakers will keep Devin Ebanks, and that additional young talent to New Orleans will be coming from the Rockets, sources confirm."

Throughout the Lockout, Ken Berger proved to be as reliable as they come. Read away. Comment here.

UPDATE (5:25 PM): Woj...

The New Orleans Hornets have delivered a reconstructed framework of the three-team blockbuster trade sending Chris Paul trade to the Los Angeles Lakers into the NBA office for approval, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

In the latest details available to Yahoo! Sports, sources say that New Orleans would send the Lakers Paul, and possibly two Hornets free agents - center Jason Smith and Marcus Banks - would be sent to the Lakers in sign-and-trade agreements.

The Rockets would send Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, a 2012 first-round pick and possibly young players or additional picks to the Hornets.

The Lakers would send Lamar Odom to the Hornets, Pau Gasol to the Rockets and league sources say that Los Angeles was pursuing a first-round pick to send to the Hornets.

"It's in David Stern's hands now," one source said. "He'll decide on the trade."

Via Twitter, ESPN's Marc Stein and Chris Broussard are reporting that another trade proposal for Chris Paul has been submitted to the NBA offices.

Chris Broussard:

@ESPNSteinLine & myself have been told by sources that new CP trade btwn LAL, NO & Hou has been submitted to NBA office for approval

I know the source isn't always the best, but Broussard has been remarkably on top of this story. This kinda matters to his bosses. I think it goes through this time. Dwight, next. We'll keep you updated. Be sure to follow both writers on Twitter as well: @Chris_Broussard and @ESPNSteinLine. Comment away....

First, Woj tweets the Lakers traded Andrew Bynum and Lamar for Chris Paul. Then he runs a correction stating he meant Pau Gasol and not Bynum. Now, multiple sources are saying 3-team trade talks between the Lakers, Hornets and Houston Rockets were revived and the deal is actually Pau to Houston, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and picks to New Orleans, and Chris Paul to the Lakers. The news keeps changing and nothing is official, but something big seems imminent.

ESPN:

The New Orleans Hornets are engaged in trade talks with the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets about a three-team trade that would send Chris Paul to the Lakers and Pau Gasol to the Rockets, sources said.

The Hornets would receive either Luis Scola or Kevin Martin, and possibly both, as well as draft picks. Houston owns the New York Knicks' first-round pick from 2012, as well as its own.

...If you aren't on Twitter, than you should be. We'll keep you updated. Discuss here. Keep refreshing.

Hoo boy. This could really be happening.

A somewhat important correction!

Note: We've closed comments on this one to consolidate the thread up top. We'll post updates there as they fly in.

11:13 AM: With the Lakers widely reported to be low-balling the Hornets for Chris Paul with the Warriors and Clippers refusing to put their better prospects in the deal in absence of an assurance from Paul that he will resign, the process has been at a deadlock between Boston and L.A., as New Orleans has some pretty poor packages in front of them for their marquee player. Well, that might be changing pretty quickly. From the Twitter account of SI's Sam Amick:

League sources say the Houston has been trying to put together a three-team deal with the Lakers and New Orleans in which Paul goes to LA.

This makes a lot of sense from Houston's perspective if they feel that they're out of running for Nene or Samuel Dalembert, as they are in serious need of a center with Chuck Hayes signing in Sacramento and draft bust Hasheem Thabeet as the only other center on the roster. We have only supposition right now, but one would think that Houston wants Emeka Okafor, a solid defensive five, from New Orleans, As such, Houston wants Pau Gasol to man the middle and is willing to facilitate the deal between the Lakers and Hornets by sending some pieces -- which Daryl Morey, one of the better GMs in the league, has no shortage of -- to New Orleans to sweeten the Lakers' package.

In other words, this is freaking awesome. For this, and the sheer hatred Bill Simmons will direct at Morey if he makes this go down.

More updates as they come after the jump:

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