The NBA took some heat for the extended and unnecessary lockout. It’s time for damage control. So the very first thing David Stern did, before the ink was even dry on the new CBA was to kill the Chris Paul to L.A. trade. Winning the new CBA and getting 3 billion dollars back from the players was only the beginning apparently. David Stern is officially mad with power, he’s jumped the shark, he’s turned the NBA into a dictatorship…
What does this mean for the upcoming season? No one knows. I guess David Stern can now pick and choose whatever deal he does and does not want to approve. The NBA under Stern’s regime has been accused of being fixed for a long time. Ask Sacramento fans. I guess every trade has to be followed by “If David Stern Allows It.”
The sad part about this is the Hornets will never even come close to getting this much for Chris Paul. They were about to get Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic and a 2012 first-round pick that Houston had acquired from the Knicks. Who is even going to come close to that? New Orleans basically received an entire starting lineup for Chris Paul. Houston would have gotten Pau Gasol and the Lakers would have gotten Chris Paul. We are now robbed of seeing Derrick Caracter and Ater Majok as the Lakers front line once Andrew Bynum gets his annual injury. OK, it wouldn’t have been that bad, the Lakers would have two trade exceptions after that trade, one worth 8.9 Million, so in theory they would have been able to fill the void on the front line with a pretty decent player.
So far the backlash from this has been pretty heavy. Twitter exploded as soon as this was announced, fans from EVERY team were pissed, even the usually loyal writers at ESPN wrote a number of articles criticizing this move. Oh and Chris Paul is planning on suing the NBA. He has a good case too. If New Orleans can’t trade Chris Paul by the end of the season (and I bet a lot of owners are going to be scared to even try, think about how awkward practice is going to be when Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol show up), he won’t be able to sign a max contract with that team. That means he could lose up to 30-40 million dollars.
Nice work Stern, what’s the next move? Are you going to make all the trades yourself for now on?
1 comment
GG says:
Dec 9, 2011
This is an interesting one. The thing that bothers me the most because of Paul was off-limits, why didn’t Stern tell Demps he was off-limits. I was having a conversation with a friend before the lockout was over. This friend is a Lakers’ fan who wanted Paul. After telling him how I think getting Paul without getting Howard is a mistake, I also told him that I thought it was unfair that Paul could even be traded as long as the NBA was in control of his team. They have to find a buyer for that squad and without him on the team, and without a new arena, and without being able to relocate them (Ellison), they were sort of the most worthless NBA team. Thus, I never thought he’d be traded.
However, you’re absolutely right that they won’t ever get that much for him either. He’s going to walk, or get traded at the deadline, and for half as much. I thought Stern botched a lot of things publicly during the lockout with some of his reasoning, which could’ve been explained much better, but came off callous and arrogant. And now this.
I also think the Lakers get saved here. If they didn’t get Howard, their three best players all have bad knees in a 66 game season where there are back to back and many games in a week. I think Paul and Bynum sit out many of these games. But if you get DH and keep wither Odom or Gasol, it’s much stronger. You could get Baron Davis and deal with him with that strong of a frontline.