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I fucking knew it. Dan Gilbert was involved. What a cunt!!! They fear a Kobe, Chris and Dwight combo but they're retarded. That would have never happened. LA just dont have any possible way to sign Dwight. Buttttt noooo.... The league blocked a legit trade and royally fucked up the team its owning. David Stern is tripping. He, of all the peoplem should know better.
Fucking David Stern man. Everybody would have been better off, except maybe Houston but like whatever dude.
The day the NBA become the NHL where teams couldn't keep its own star roster is the day I start watching NCAA. And it's starting to look like it. LA can't have Chris even though they're giving up there 2 best big men. Why? Because other owners jelly. Shits retarded.
You know in soccer they have a rule that allows players to go to whatever the fuck team they want to play as long as the transfer is doable and fair because the player's morale would be fucked if he's not allowed to leave and nobody ended up better off. Now Stern cockblocked LA without taking into account a fucked up locker room. They're professional and all but still, nobody would like to be in that situation.
NO no, You should be specific about player's Morale. Chris Paul is not Vince Carter. He will still perform 100% even if he has to wait til the end of the season.
NBA owners revealed themselves to be vindictive, onerous, agenda-driven and spectacularly petty Thursday night when they complained to the point that David Stern, in a completely gutless move by all involved, essentially vetoed a perfectly legitimate trade.
It's a move that smells rotten 100 different ways, and the players have no stink in it. The owners and the people who run the league ought to be ashamed of themselves for being so foul as to big-foot a basketball swap that appears to, yes, help the Lakers, who would get Chris Paul, and still help the Hornets get something for him. Everybody and his mama knows Paul plans to leave New Orleans after the upcoming season.
Instead of letting the Hornets get on with their business and make the best deal possible so as to avoid the disaster of an unhappy superstar playing out a lame duck season (as was the case with the Nuggets and Carmelo Anthony last season), Stern has apparently vetoed a deal that would have sent Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and a draft pick to the Hornets, and Pau Gasol to center-desperate Houston.
The problem with the deal? It'd send another star to a big-market team, the Lakers, a trend the small-market owners had in their sights to stop during the recently concluded lockout. Small-market teams screamed bloody murder about stars migrating to big-market teams, as if this hasn't been the case all the way back to, say, the mid-1970s, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar forced his way out of Milwaukee and to Los Angeles. The deal ratified just Thursday night was supposed to address those concerns.
But since the league re-opened for business, what have we had? Paul saying he wanted to go to New York to play for the Knicks, reports of the Lakers putting together a deal for Orlando's Dwight Howard, then Howard and/or Paul. It sure sounds like business as usual, NBA-style.
And the owners, probably a third of whom didn't like the deal but voted for it anyway in order to not miss the entire season, whined and stomped their feet and made Stern make the deal go away. The owners apparently think the NBA can legislate where players go when they're free agents or about to be free agents. See, Bryant Gumbel probably had it right when he talked about a plantation mentality at the top of the league, but perhaps he shouldn't have confined his comments to Stern. Perhaps he should have been a lot broader and included some owners as well.
THE COMMISSIONER'S STATEMENT
NBA commissioner David Stern released this statement on Friday about his decision to veto the three-team trade involving Chris Paul: "Since the NBA purchased the New Orleans Hornets, final responsibility for significant management decisions lies with the Commissioner's Office in consultation with team chairman Jac Sperling. All decisions are made on the basis of what is in the best interests of the Hornets. In the case of the trade proposal that was made to the Hornets for Chris Paul, we decided, free from the influence of other NBA owners, that the team was better served with Chris in a Hornets uniform than by the outcome of the terms of that trade."
Unless the appeal filed by the teams involved in Thursday's proposed trade (or a lawsuit reportedly being considered by Paul) reverses the decision, the league now apparently will allow free agency only as long as enough players to its liking are willing to sign up to play in Portland, New Orleans, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, etc. You think Stern would have stopped this trade had Paul been dealt for essentially the same package to, oh, Indiana? Or Memphis? Or Oklahoma City? There isn't a chance in hell.
But what stopping this trade does is prevent New Orleans from getting players who can help that small-market franchise not only recover, but move on. Odom is one of the most versatile frontcourt players in the NBA. Scola averaged 18 points and eight rebounds per game last season. Martin can get you 20 points a night. Dragic is a suitable backup. What's wrong with this deal? Nothing, except the Lakers made it. This isn't a heist; it's a deal that's easy to defend if you're looking at it from the Hornets' viewpoint. What's more, executives from the Lakers and executives from the Hornets made it. Club officials.
Problem is, there are owners like Cleveland's Dan Gilbert, still whining like a 2-year-old over the departure of LeBron James, who want some sort of guarantee that small-market teams will get their share of free agents.
Well, there aren't any guarantees. The NBA, with the majority of its players being African-Americans from uber-urban areas, is and will likely always be a league dominated by big-city teams. Players gravitate toward them. Even players such as Paul, from a small town, dreamt of playing on the big stage. The best attempt to even things up, even a little bit, is the college draft, which is how teams such as San Antonio and Utah (and now Oklahoma City) got top players, and in their cases developed and held onto superstars.
We're sure to hear about a conflict of interest, what with the Hornets being run by the league and dealing a great player to Los Angeles. So, it would be OK for the NBA to trade Paul to a dreadful team, say the Timberwolves? The NBA knew there could be the appearance of a conflict when it made the decision to run the Hornets. Why should Paul play in New Orleans indefinitely? Because management there was incompetent, which it was? Because the Knicks -- talk about the pot calling the kettle black -- don't like the trade? Since when do owners not involved with a trade get to lobby against it? Where in the NBA rules does it say other clubs get to whine that the Lakers will be too good again? And who stands up to them and says, "Hey you MORONS, it's quite possible the Hornets made a good deal here."
If, as many suspect, owners are still angry because they didn't think they got a good enough deal and they didn't want to ratify something that didn't do enough for small-market clubs, they should have had the guts to say no to the new CBA. But if, as a group, the owners accepted it, then they should have the decency to live with it, which is surely what the league and owners would tell the players.
What eats at many NBA owners is this: They aren't NFL owners. They don't share a big enough cut of the revenues. They don't have an unending stream of television money. Their arenas aren't at about 95 percent capacity. They aren't a national obsession. And their small-market teams aren't flush, in most cases, like the Packers or Steelers are. They can't just cut players and get rid of their salaries, which aren't guaranteed in the NFL. They want control, big control, like the NFL teams have and they don't. They don't want the LeBrons and D-Wades hooking up on their own terms.
And after a lockout that was supposed to drive this point home, they damn sure don't want Chris Paul forcing his way out of New Orleans to go to New York or Los Angeles. Don't these players understand why they were locked out all that time?
So where does the league go from here? Does the vetoing of the Paul trade mean big-city teams can't deal with small-market teams anymore, unless a certain number of owners or Stern find the deal to their liking? Do players have to check their free-agent destinations with the league for approval? You can go to Orlando or Charlotte because they're smaller and in need, but not the Lakers or Bulls or Celtics because, you know, they've got enough already in the way of assets.
None of this even deals with how in the world the teams involved are going to re-incorporate the players they just tried to deal away. It doesn't even deal with another eventuality: Chris Paul is going to have to be traded somewhere. Would Stern like to tell him where he can sign for the next five years?
The NBA, from the commissioner's office to a great many of its owners, is so envious of the NFL that it wants the same kind of parity. It wants its small markets to matter in the same way. But the fact is, the NBA's popularity, its very brand, was successfully built, yes, on the participation of a lot of teams but on the brilliance of a few, notably the Lakers and Celtics. Parity might have been a worthy goal for Pete Rozelle and the NFL, but it has never amounted to a hill of beans for the NBA. Neither has some socialist-style spreading of wealth.
Make no mistake (and somebody ought to stand up in a room and shout this in the faces of the shortsighted owners who whined over this deal): It's the Lakers and Celtics and the ability of their top executives to make deals decade after decade that not only have kept those franchises at the top of the pyramid but also allowed the NBA to matter as much as it has.
NO no, You should be specific about player's Morale. Chris Paul is not Vince Carter. He will still perform 100% even if he has to wait til the end of the season.
It's not CP's morale that you should worry about. It's the morale of the scrubs around him. The whole team suffer when the lead dog already sent the message: "Fuck this, I'm gone in 6 months". Look at the Melodrama case.
The Hornets could have been back in the playoffs again had the deal went through. Now they could enjoy the lottery and having "another one who got away".
All three teams' locker room are severely affected in this deal, most prominently NO and LA.
I'm sick and tired of the bullshits of Mark Cuban and Dan Gilbert. It's nobody fault that not a single star want to play for them. Can't believe I actually rooted for the Mavs in last year finals. This is a terrible precedent, this league could go to shits...
Was it the worst moment of David Stern's entire tenure? I never thought anything would top an official fixing games, but man … how can anything be worse than this? Imagine this happened in your fantasy league. Imagine spending weeks shaping a deal, executing it, then having your commissioner waltz in and say, "Nah, I'm vetoing that one." Would that ever happen? And now this is happening in a PROFESSIONAL SPORTS LEAGUE?
Just know that I'm a die-hard Celtics fan and die-hard Lakers hater … and even I am appalled. I hope Chris Paul sues. I hope the Rockets sue. I hope the Lakers sue. I hope Dell Demps resigns and makes a sex tape with a stripper wearing a David Stern Halloween mask. Whatever happens, the season has been irrevocably tainted — we just watched FIVE teams have their seasons screwed up by this debacle. Houston's three-year plan just went up in smoke; now the Rockets have to make up with their two best players. (Good luck with that.) The Lakers need to determine if their relationship with the notoriously sensitive Gasol and the even more notoriously sensitive Odom is salvageable; and if it's not, what then? The Hornets are just plain screwed. It's a basketball catastrophe for them. As for the Celtics, Pinocchio Ainge's ill-fated pursuit of Paul ruined the team's relationship with Rajon Rondo, only its best young player. Even the Knicks got screwed — supposedly they closed the deal with Tyson Chandler yesterday, never expecting Paul to become available this summer (and now they can't chase him).
The total tally: Five teams were screwed by one cowardly decision.
[...]
Can Mike Brown even coach the lakers
with or without CP3+D12 i highly doubt it
haha
I'm confident in Mike. He took a young LeBron and a bunch of scrubs to the Finals and back to back to back deep playoffs runs. That's saying A LOT. He's also defensive minded. I don't know if they'll be playing the triangle though.
I think the trade will go through. Too much is on the line. Stern needs to stop smoking crack. Union and Paul are threatening to go to Federal Court by Monday if shits arent set straight.
Paul will go to LA and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Dan Gilbert and Mark Cuban of course.
^ what do you mean by putting Mark Cuban in the same sentence as Dan Gilbert?
Cuban is fine he's one of the 5 owners who voted against the new CBA.
Or am I misunderstanding and you're talking about it in the sense that the Lakers will be a tough competitor to Dallas this year if they add CP3?
Chris is and has been my favorite player since Wake Forest, but I think this is a bad trade for Lakers giving up Odom and Gasol, I dont care how bad Gasol did last year, he's an all star
If you look at the moves Cuban is making, yea they might seem questionable dismantling the team that just won you a chip, but longterm near future wise it's very smart, and given his teams overall age, he's currently playing his cards right, very right. Posted via RS Mobile
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