NBA Trade Rumors: League Does Right Thing in Vetoing Chris Paul Trade

Thursday night gave us one of the more exciting and confusing periods of time in the history of the NBA.

Initially, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported, the Lakers were going to acquire Chris Paul in a three-team deal. Things changed and they changed quickly.

Wojnarowski later reported that the trade was killed, as NBA owners demanded NBA Commissioner David Stern veto the trade.

From Wojnarowski: 

"

Some owners pushed Stern to demand the trade be nullified, and the Hornets be made to keep Paul on the roster for the foreseeable future, sources said. A chorus of owners were irate with the belief that the five-month lockout had happened largely to stop big-market teams from leveraging small-market teams for star players pending free agency.

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Ultimately, this was the only decision that could be made. Have whatever opinion you want about the trade and who got the better end of the deal. It doesn't matter.

The fact is that the Hornets are owned by the NBA. They really shouldn't be making any moves until they have an actual ownership of their own. Certainly, they can't be making moves that involve a player like Chris Paul.

It's not a secret that the Lakers are a heavily marketed team. Why wouldn't they be? After all, they play in Los Angeles. It makes sense to take advantage of that market. 

The conflict of interest is just too great. That applies even if there is nothing fishy going on. The league just has too much power over the Hornets to make a move like this. 

The reality is that Paul needs to stay in New Orleans until he is either a free agent, or the Hornets have an independent ownership group. Until that happens, the team can't make a move like the one that almost went down on Thursday.

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