NBA Trade Rumors: League Office Must Stay out of Dwight Howard to Nets Deal

The Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Hornets and Houston Rockets worked out a perfectly good trade that would have sent Chris Paul to LA. However, the league office vetoed it. If the New Jersey Nets can now work out a deal for Dwight Howard, the league must stay out of it.

According to Chris Broussard of ESPN, Howard is very much willing to leave the Orlando Magic for the Nets, while the Nets are prepared to put together a package including center Brook Lopez. If a trade is agreed upon by the two teams, it must be allowed to go through.

For whatever reason, NBA commissioner David Stern and the league office vetoed a deal that would have involved Paul going to the Lakers, Pau Gasol going to the Rockets and Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic heading to New Orleans.

There has been no indication as to why the deal was not allowed to go through, but there is speculation that Stern was pressed by small-market owners to veto the trade. In particular, the Cleveland Cavaliers' Dan Gilbert sent the commissioner an email protesting the prospective deal.

The league currently owns the Hornets, but that shouldn't have any bearing upon the trade. Gilbert expresses outrage at the deal since it would save the Lakers tons of money in luxury taxes. However, the Hornets had to worry about doing what was best for them, not how if affected other teams.

At this point, it doesn't seem as though there is any way that Paul will re-sign with New Orleans. As a result, the Hornets sought the best trade possible, and I believe they had it in place. Odom, Scola and Martin are all quality NBA players, while Dragic and a draft pick are good pieces for the future.

While that package wouldn't be able to replace what Paul can do, it would have allowed the Hornets to remain competitive and very much in the playoff picture in the Western Conference. Instead, Stern made a power move for no apparent reason.

If a deal between Orlando and New Jersey is struck involving Howard, there is a fallacy that the NBA can't do anything about it. The NBA does own the Hornets, but it simply isn't true that they only have authority over that one organization.

Every single trade that is agreed upon either has to be passed or vetoed by the league office, regardless of which teams are involved. While league executives are normally laissez faire when it comes to trades, they felt a need to veto the Paul trade in order to justify the new collective bargaining agreement in some way.

Teams should have the right to conduct their own business, however, and that is how the Howard situation needs to be handled. No matter if one team is a lopsided winner in the deal or if one team saves an obscene amount of money in the deal, Stern needs to allow it because these franchises are simply trying to do what is best for themselves.

The Hornets were doing just that in the Paul trade, but Stern turned it down and ruined the plans of three franchises. In all reality, the league is allowed to veto a trade, but this particular veto was senseless and it simply shouldn't become a habit.