NBA

“F— This Whole Thing”: Chris Paul Trade Killed By David Stern, All Hell Breaks Loose In NBA

Late on Thursday, league commissioner David Stern nixed a three-team deal that would’ve sent Chris Paul from the league-owned New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Lakers, following complaints from several owners. Read that sentence again: the league-owned New Orleans Hornets.

So yes, at some point last night, pro basketball turned into a very, very screwed-up fantasy football league.

The trade would’ve looked like this: the Lakers get Paul, the Houston Rockets get Pau Gasol, and the Hornets get received Lamar Odom, Rockets guards Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic, forward Luis Scola, and a 2012 first-round pick. Like all trades, the fairness of it is open to interpretation. A group of the league’s owners thought it was very unfair, and complained to Stern.

So, after hearing those complaints — most notably in an angy letter from Cavs owner Dan Gilbert (yes, the same Dan Gilbert who also wrote this angry letter) — Stern stepped in, voiding the trade that only a few hours earlier his league had helped consummate. If you think this is a little chaotic, you’re not the only one: one anonymous NBA executive, whose team had been involved in talks with Paul, had this to say.

“We were all told by the league he was a trade-able player, and now they’re saying that [Hornets general manager] Dell [Demps] doesn’t have the authority to make the trade?” said an NBA executive who had periodic talks with New Orleans throughout the process. “Now, they’re saying that Dell is an idiot, that he can’t do it his job. [Expletive] this whole thing. David’s drunk on power, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the players, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the hundreds of hours the teams put in to make that deal.

Stern’s reasoning for voiding the trade is simple: He wants to prove that star players can’t dictate where they go, and that the NBA won’t be turned into a league with a few super-powered, big-market teams and a bunch of third-world, small-market ones. Which is understandable.

But the way this situation was handled was obviously botched, and makes the NBA look like it’s ruled by one superpower, not a handful. That superpower is David Stern. By first allowing this trade to happen, then pulling the plug a few hours later, he removed the confidence of many executives in the trade market (executives like the one who said “[Expletive] this whole thing”). Why make a trade if your crazy fantasy football commissioner will just veto it?