Source: Hornets have no intention of trading Chris Paul

From Marc Stein’s Weekend Dime at ESPN.com:

Darren Collison is putting up huge numbers as Chris Paul’s fill-in (see below), which naturally prompts teams around the league to dream that Hornets owner George Shinn — once he realizes that he’s paying just $1.3 million to Collison this season compared with $13.5 million for Paul — will consent to trading CP3 this offseason.

Don’t count on it.

Back on Christmas we ran through some of the reasons why the Hornets, even when they were over the luxury-tax threshold earlier this season, wouldn’t even consider the prospect of trading Paul. One source with knowledge of the Hornets’ thinking reiterated this week that nothing has changed since then, especially since the Hornets are now under the tax line and suddenly have two promising young assets besides Paul: Collison and fellow rookie Marcus Thornton.

Paul’s future will remain a popular topic because of his ability to become a free agent in the summer of 2012 and the Hornets’ standing as a .500 team. But given his immense profile in New Orleans and the fact that Paul almost exclusively makes basketball viable in Saints territory, it seems far more likely that the Hornets would try to move Collison to fill another need.