Chris Paul Trade: David Stern Allegedly Lied About Knowledge of Vetoed Trade

The notion that David Stern did not have full knowledge of the three-team trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers and Pau Gasol to the Rockets is "an outright lie," Johnathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle  reports.

Stern said that he was "generally informed about the discussion with teams," but according to one of the two sources, Stern was briefed on the situation and the trade was a done deal.

The NBA owned Hornets being involved in the trade has many people formulating conspiracy theories. Many believe the vetoed trade has less to do with competitive balance than Stern is letting on.

CP3 is obviously on the Clippers and while this deal obviously has no shot of going through now, the Rockets and Lakers were completely scorned by the commissioner's decision.

Be it "basketball reasons," money, pouting owners or Stern trying to protect the competitive balance of the NBA, the Rockets didn't land Gasol and the Lakers gained nobody and lost Lamar Odom to trade in the process.

According to the report, a source with knowledge of the situation says Hornets GM Dell Demps assured Rockets GM Daryl Morey and Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak that Stern had knowledge about the deal and had signed off on it.

Essentially, Stern chose where Paul would play by vetoing a trade that shipped him to the Lakers and allowing one that sent him to the Clippers to go through. This raises huge ethical questions and while not every team in the situation is publicly kicking and screaming, how can they not be outraged by the commissioner's actions?

Stern is under fire for axing a trade that benefited all three teams that were involved. He still hasn't given a concrete answer that would warrant disallowing this tried and the backpedaling and alleged lies have to frustrate the fans of all three teams involved in the trade.

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