For about three hours on Thursday, Chris Paul was about to become a Laker. It was a culmination of a frenetic week that involved several teams, including the Celtics, angling to acquire the All-Star point guard. The return seemed reasonable. In exchange for Paul, the Lakers surrendered Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol who was set to be moved to Houston for Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and a first round pick.

And then suddenly the deal was off. Officially, the NBA, which owns the Hornets said, “The league office declined to make the trade for basketball reasons.” That raises the obvious point of what those “basketball reasons” really were considering the Lakers deal was the best one available and reporters in Los Angeles indicated the Lakers couldn’t get an answer on what would have made the deal more palatable.

With Paul back in New Orleans – at least temporarily – the entire structure of the league has been thrown into chaos. Is Paul no longer available at all? It would be laughable for the NBA to turn around and approve a deal to the Celtics for Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green and draft picks.

Beyond that, how does this affect Dwight Howard, the other huge trade domino on the NBA horizon? The Lakers move left a clear avenue to try and get Howard as well, with center Andrew Bynum left out of the Paul deal.

At the very least, Hornets GM Dell Demps had his legs cut out from under him at the exact moment when he has a chance to remake the franchise. (Yahoo reported late Thursday night that Demps had to be talked out of resigning).

This is a bad look for the NBA. It’s a power play where they make up the rules as they go along and there is collateral damage everywhere including the Celtics who kept Rondo dangling for weeks. You think Danny Ainge would have pulled back if he knew there was this kind of contingency attached to a deal?

Even before the Paul fiasco, Thursday wasn’t a good day for the Celtics. The Knicks appeared set to sign free agent center Tyson Chandler and will cut ties with point guard Chauncey Billups. While that leaves them with the obvious problem of not having a point guard, Chandler immediately upgrades their defense. (Here’s another one. Think the Knicks might want to hold on to that cap space to try and get Paul in 2012 if they knew he couldn’t be traded?)

The Heat are set to sign Shane Battier, which will give them three premier defensive players on the perimeter and allow them to use either Dwyane Wade or LeBron James on penetrating point guards – like Rondo -- which was a problem for them last season. 

The Celtics are set to bring back Marquis Daniels, who will provide insurance in case Delonte West signs somewhere else. They also will acquire backup point guard Keyon Dooling from the Bucks for a second round draft pick using a trade exception that opened up when Daniels was traded to the Kings last February. 

Assuming Ainge doesn’t have any other hands left to play, the Celtics will be back as essentially the same team as when we last saw them with a handful of other minor adjustments. They still need help up front behind Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O’Neal and another shooter wouldn’t hurt either. If Glen Davis signs elsewhere, they’ll need yet another frontcourt player.

The first order of business when the Celtics actually convene for training camp on Friday is doing damage control with Rondo. No, he’s not as a good as Paul, but Rondo is a 25-year old, two-time All-Star point guard who will be starting the second year of a very reasonable five-year contract.

That’s the main thing that was lost in the CP3 frenzy. Despite all his quirks both on and off the court, it’s a little over the top that Rondo’s contributions have been so quickly vaporized for the simple reality that he’s not the absolute best point guard in the league. As we learned in 2010, a motivated Rondo is a dangerous Rondo.

But he also has to realize that the Hornets resisted every opportunity to make a deal for him as the centerpiece. Reports said they preferred packages that revolved around Eric Gordon of the Clippers and Golden State’s Steph Curry. At one point on Thursday it looked like New Orleans was after Bynum. Then they relented and accepted the older Gasol. Rondo’s value around the league has clearly taken a hit. 

This is the year for him to assert himself as the present and future of the Celtics because if Rondo does stay, Ainge will have to construct essentially an entire team either around him or with him and it’s not immediately clear what that would look like. Basketball is back in Boston but the future is even more cloudy than it was 24 hours ago.