Chris Paul Trade: Are David Stern and NBA Sabotaging New Orleans Hornets?
As a democrat, I am usually for strict and fair regulation. The NBA's decision to intervene and nix the Chris Paul trade isn't regulation, it's unjustifiably bad business and frankly, bizarre.
Since one of the league's highest-rated Finals of the decade and the subsequent NBA lockout that just ended last week, I was under the impression the NBA believed in two core concepts.
Forget that those two concepts are contradictory by nature. In theory, they work out fine, or so we tried to make ourselves believe.
In principle, everyone wants for small market teams to have an equal chance to succeed. Besides the fact that the majority of teams are from cities outside the main media markets, competition is key to running a successful league.
At the same time, however, we all recognized that having three superstars (Miami) or four All-Stars (Boston) on a team is just more fun to watch and better for the league than supporting Orlando labor through another disappointing season without anyone to rescue Dwight Howard.
Plus, how many times have we fantasized about seeing Howard and Kobe or Chris Paul and Carmelo play together before turning to a friend to defend why teams like Indiana, Oklahoma City and Portland need to be protected by the league?
Somehow in making the small market defense, we always chose the teams with no superstars that needed to be helped by the new CBA. It never registers that Orlando and New Orleans (outside those cities of course) are the very teams that needed the most protection, in large part because they've had success.
The league's decision to block an agreed upon trade that would send Chris Paul to the Lakers, Pau Gasol to the Rockets and a host of players to the Hornets, was a violent collision of the NBAs to opposing beliefs and a true test for the NBA.
Would Stern side with the majority of the owners in protecting small market teams as he had campaigned, or would he stand by idly knowing that a Chris Paul and Kobe Byrant backcourt would be a ratings bonanza and one of the best things that could happen for the league marketability wise?
Now, before we get to what happened, the Hornets are a unique case that has led to this surreal outcome.
Feeling the emotional pull to keep the Hornets in New Orleans after Katrina, the NBA stepped in to buy the team when it was put up for sale, preventing Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison from buying and moving the Hornets to San Jose (even though he promised to keep it in New Orleans).
Having won the bid, the NBA - through its 29 owners who shared the price - officially owns the team and has say over all final decisions. GM Dell Demps was given full control of the team. With no owner, he was the de facto head of the franchise. Since the sale last year, the league had kept their word and stayed out of personnel matters. That is until Thursday night, when injecting himself into the discussion on behalf of his owners, commissioner David Stern nullified the agreed upon trade.
In attempting to appease several team owners and their belief that small market teams need to be protected, Stern has not only undercut the Hornets but also himself and the NBA.
The move by the league office is the epitome of crazy and exposes the flaws of the league's attempts to make it easier for teams to keep their top players (See Bird Exemption, Extend-and-Trade and What Does it all Mean? here).
Most importantly, it really screws the Lakers, Chris Paul and the Hornets (we can't forget Houston either).
Let's start with why the league is deluded if it thinks the new CBA will help teams keep their top players.
While it does give small market franchises the ability to pay their top stars more, ultimately, no matter how greedy some of these may be (not saying they are), they don't need the money!
The LeBrons, Dwight Howards and Chris Pauls of the NBA simply don't need the money. Not when the difference is a few million and they are already making 14.5 million, 16.6 million or 14.9 million annually.
Even if money were an issue (it's obviously not), they all know they are going to more than make it up through endorsements and by playing for championships in June in front of a larger TV market that reaches a wider audience.
These guys are stars and if they want to leave they will. Money might help persuade a Joe Johnson to sign somewhere, but it won't influence the likes of Chris Paul. We've already seen it in Boston, Miami and New York.
Coming to grips with or recognizing reality helps in understanding why interfering with the Chris Paul trade is ludicrous on every level.
If Chris Paul wants to leave, he's going to. The NBA can block him now but whether it's this week or this summer, Chris Paul is leaving. He said as much last Monday.
So if you are David Stern, why postpone the inevitable and drag it out much to the embarrassment and chagrin of the team and fanbase? It's basically slow torture for an already beleaguered city.
If David Stern really cared about the Hornets you think he wouldn't interfere because as ESPN basketball analysts Mark Stein and J.A. Adande both agreed, the Hornets are getting a good deal in return.
Who else will be able to offer a deal even similar to Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and a first round draft pick?
As Bill Simmons wrote, "Isn't right now your best chance to get 90 cents on the dollar for someone who's leaving in seven months..?"
Basically, unless a dream trade is proposed, the NBA will essentially sabotage the Hornets as seven months from now the Hornets with have no Chris Paul and nothing to build around. Well played, NBA.
Even if such a dream to-good-to-pass-up trade offer is proposed (with the Clippers, Thunder and maybe the Warriors seemingly the only teams that even have the pieces for such an offer), the NBA would then find themselves tasked with untenable position of—to borrow a phrase from Rick Perry's campaign—picking winners and losers.
Suddenly one team and certain players would have more merit or value than the others.
What kind of precedent would that send (a dangerous one) and how insulted would the Lakers be?
Which brings us to L.A.
How unfair is it to the team, coaches and players (particularly Odom and Gasol) who thought a trade was finalized? Can you imagine the first day of practice tomorrow? Talk about awkward.
Had anyone other than consummate professionals Odom and Gasol been put in the position of being traded before later being called in to report to training camp for the same team, the whole team could have kissed their chemistry—and probably season—goodbye.
But more importantly, how does it affect them going forward?
If the Paul trade doesn't happen (and in theory it still might) do they make a play for Howard instead or do they wait-and-see about what happens with the guy they covet in Paul?
If they wait too long, they could lose out on both...How mad would L.A. be with the league then? In essence the league could have just altered the NBA finals before a game was ever played.
How much credibility will the league lose? And not to be forgotten, would the Lakers have legal recourse against the NBA?
Can you imagine, a few months after getting sued by the players, the league gets sued by one of its own teams?
Last but not least is the guy that is the focus of all these talks, Chris Paul.
The likelihood now is that Paul stays in New Orleans for the year and is completely unhappy—which by the way isn't just a totally unnecessary distraction for the Hornets and the Lakers but also one for the league—before signing elsewhere with the Knicks or Lakers come next summer.
But what if the worst were to happen and Paul's bum knee gives way (a more serious Brandon Roy type injury)? Suddenly he'd be out of tens of millions of dollars all because David Stern was trying to prove his wishful theory that he and the league can determine where superstars will play.
The NBA is entering dangerous territories and is setting a precarious precedent.
Chris Paul responded on Twitter in shock saying just "WoW." Supporters should follow up with #FreeChrisPaul as the proposed trade is good for the league, good for Chris Paul and good for the Hornets.
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