Chris Paul released the following statement after meeting with the Hornets on Monday morning:

The meeting went well.  It was great to get an opportunity to sit down with Coach Williams, President Weber and our new General Manager Dell Demps. I expressed my desire to win and I like what they said about the direction that they want to take the team.  I have been a Hornet my entire career and I hope to represent the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana for many years to come.

If things are as they appear from this statement, it’s nice to see. It was starting to look like Paul was going to lose his status as one of the NBA’s good guys, as someone who still respects virtues like loyalty and patience. The result of this meeting looks to be a win for the Hornets, the NBA and Paul. Now the New Orleans front office needs to step up. They owe it to Paul, Hornets’ fans and fans of the NBA, to do all they can to build a championship-contending team around Paul. We’ll put this story to rest, for now. Who knows what the future holds.

Update: Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski throws a cold bucket of water on the warm fuzzies emanating from the above statement with the following tweet:

Ignore spin out of this Hornets-Chris Paul meeting. He wants out. They don’t want to trade him. Nothing’s changed, except there’s a new GM.

Wojnarowski also tweets that Paul won’t make a public trade demand because he knows he has no leverage. He still has two years left on his deal.