NBA Draft Lottery 2012: A Big Night for David Stern and the New Orleans Hornets

NBA commissioner David Stern will have you believe that deciding to kill last December's three-team trade that would've sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers was a decision made in the best interest of the New Orleans Hornets. He'll have you believe that the trade agreed upon weeks later that sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Clippers was the better move.

He's lying to you on both counts.

Here's why I believe Stern sent CP3 to the other L.A. basketball team.

After months of negotiating and fighting for smaller market teams against their bigger city brethren, Stern would have looked like a hypocrite if he poached the small market Hornets of its best asset and built a juggernaut in Laker land by teaming Paul with Kobe Bryant.

Since he couldn't come up with a legitimate excuse for killing the Lakers trade, he was forced to accept the Clippers deal, which had the potential to be the better deal if things broke the right way for New Orleans. The problem, of course, is he was still sending Paul to a big market.

In fact, he was sending him to the same market.

The difference here is two-fold. If Stern can manage to not anger other owners by loading the Lakers, then it will work to his benefit when they break bread on the next CBA. If he can manage to do that and build another contender in the same building, well, where can the little fella sign up?

In tonight's NBA Draft lottery, David Stern walks the line between commissioner and hypocrite yet again.

One of the biggest assets in the Clippers deal was the once-vaunted Timberwolves' first-round pick. With Minnesota playing better than expected, that pick is likely to be in the later part of the lottery. Even in a draft this deep, that's not exactly a panacea for Hornets fans who just lost their best player since Glen Rice.

The T'Wolves' pick has a 1.1 percent chance of landing the first pick, which will be Kentucky big man Anthony Davis. It has less than a 5 percent chance of being in the top three.

If the pick beats the odds, skeptics will start pointing their conspiracy theories at Stern once again. If it doesn't, then it's the latest in a series of disappointments that this trade brought upon New Orleans.

For one, shooting guard Eric Gordon (the other key piece in the Clipper deal) was injured for most of the year and is a restricted free agent this summer. Center Chris Kaman spent most of the year on the trading block, but managed to start 33 games and average a pedestrian 13.1 points and 7.7 rebounds. Forward Al-Farouq Aminu, meanwhile, translates into "NBA journeyman" when you run his name through Babblefish.

Those three, combined with wherever the T'Wolves end up picking, were the compensation for the best point guard in the league. Compare that to the Lakers deal.

The Hornets would have received shooting guard Kevin Martin, power forward Luis Scola, guard Goran Dragic and Houston's first-round pick. Martin is less talented than Gordon but he's also less brittle. Scola would have solidified the power forward spot and eliminated the Kaman/Emeka Okafor debacle. Dragic had a career year for the Rockets and Houston's first-round pick won't be much further down the lottery than Minnesota's, barring a miracle.

Lamar Odom was also a part of the Lakers deal, but given his temper tantrums over being sent to Dallas, I imagine Odom's time in New Orleans would've been short-lived.

Still, Stern will have you believe he made the right move. The biggest victim in this, of course, is New Orleans and its fans. As if watching CP3 lead the Clippers to the second round wasn't a tough enough pill to swallow, they are stuck with a poo-poo platter of spare parts as Paul's compensation.

Unless New Orleans gets lucky in the lottery tonight, they are in for a long road back to respectability. In the most humorous of ironies, by denying the Lakers Chris Paul, they set Showtime up to acquire Dwight Howard this summer, while the Hornets toil in obscurity. It was the biggest botch job in New Orleans since George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Tonight holds the fate of a beleaguered franchise and the man once responsible for its caretaking. What ready-made excuse will Stern have if the ping-pong balls don't save the Hornets?