The trade should have went through, but thanks Dan Gilbert and other owners the trade was blocked because they felt it gave the Lakers an unfair advantage.
The Hornets (now Pelicans) were owned by the NBA at the time, so that made things complicated.
David Stern is often blamed for the trade not happening, but he lays the blame on someone else.
“(My decision) was only based on what was good for New Orleans, or what was not good for New Orleans,” Stern said on the “Nunyo and Company” podcast, via Silver Screen and Roll. “It had nothing to do with the Lakers at all. And in fact, in the course of the weekend, we thought we could redo the deal. We really thought that Houston would be ready to part with Kyle Lowry; and we had a trade lined up for Odom that would have gotten us a good first-round draft pick. Not we, but my basketball folks. But Mitch Kupchack at the time panicked, and moved Odom to Dallas. So the piece wasn’t even there for us to play with at the time. So that was it — just about what was good for the then New Orleans Hornets.”
The Lakers have never recovered from this, so it doesn’t really matter whose fault it was, the damage has been done.