David Stern: A Stern Disaster Takes the NBA by Storm

On Thursday evening, the NBA world was stunned…twice.

First came the news that, after months of speculation, New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, one of the league’s undisputed superstars, would be moving to LA, pairing up with Kobe Bryant as the Lakers attempted to launch themselves back into championship relevancy after abject failure in last season’s playoffs.

At the same time, the Lakers would ship big man Lamar Odom to the Hornets and Pau Gasol (arguably also among the best players in the league) to Houston, who in turn would send a host of moderately talented pieces to New Orleans. It was a big trade that seemed eminently fair and balanced; after all, the Hornets, who will almost certainly lose Paul for nothing after the end of the shortened 2011/12 season, would be getting good value for the departure of their talisman.

Then, just a few hours later, when most NBA fans were speculating about how a Paul-Bryant combo would play out for the Lakers, the league dropped an absolute bombshell. For the first time in league history, the NBA and commissioner David Stern, who own the Hornets after having bought them in December of last year, blocked the trade.

Citing “basketball reasons” as their main motive, the league stopped the move, stunning fans across the nation and almost certainly inviting legal challenges from at least a few of the teams and players involved. Some have even speculated whether this decision may spur the beginning of the end of Stern’s tenure at the head of the NBA, a change that we feel is justified.

Quite simply, there is no precedent and even less logic behind Stern’s move, which was enacted after several owners (among them Cavs owner Dan Gilbert) lodged protest with the decision, seemingly fearing that the trade would create an unfair balance towards another big-market team. Of course, such viewpoints have no grounding in reality.

If anything, the deal was a bad one for LA; while they would have made a massive upgrade at point guard, Gasol and Odom were key cogs in the team, whose absence would have surely been felt. It is certainly arguable whether or not the Lakers could have overcome such losses and become true title contenders. 

However, if any team got the truly short stick through Stern’s block of the trade, it is the Hornets. The terms of the trade were more than fair to New Orleans, who could have totally revamped their team with a solid lineup that would have included young point guard Goran Dragic, an elite power forward in Luis Scola, dynamic swingman Kevin Martin and a first-round pick in next season’s draft (all acquired from the Rockets) as well as Odom.

Now, Paul will leave the Hornets next summer for free, and the team will be left in a massive lurch; not to mention the fact that they will spend the rest of the 66-game regular season with a point guard who doesn’t want to be there. The various Rockets and Lakers who were on the verge of being traded will no doubt feel even worse; how will the likes of Odom and Gasol be able to go back and give their all to a team who was prepared to get rid of them?

Even in the coldly business-like world of professional sports, knowing that you are surplus to requirements is bound to hurt. In terms of “basketball reasons," blocking the trade makes even less sense than allowing it to move forward.

The fact that the protestations of owners like Gilbert were enough to strong-arm the NBA into killing such an eminently fair deal does not bode well for Stern. There was no indication in the rumor-filled weeks leading up to the trade that Stern had any inclination to stopping a move by Paul to the Lakers, or indeed any other team; it was only when the actual terms of the trade materialized that the commissioner felt inclined to stop it from moving forward.

If Stern’s hold and views are so tenuous that a strongly worded email can force him into making a momentous, scandalous decision that will invite controversy and anger for weeks to come, teams across the league should be concerned as to how much authority the commissioner’s office holds, and how willing it is to enforce it. 

Perhaps the most galling point to surface throughout this unfolding debacle is the conflict of interest inherent in having the league own a team. Gilbert, as well as the other owners who no doubt support his views on the trade, are part-owners of the very team who they attempted to prevent from unloading their star player.

In the end, Stern’s decision has been an absolute disaster for the NBA, and is one that is lacking in all logic or common sense. Whether or not legal challenges from the Lakers, Hornets and Rockets succeed in forcing the league to allow the trade to go forward, it is clear that it will take some sort of PR miracle for the embattled commissioner to fix his image in the wider basketball community.