CP3 Trade Veto-Revisited

[poido123]

Bynum would likely still be here if the trade went through. Dwight trade never would of happened.

Which in the end would of been a who knows what would of happened as far as Lakers success goes...

[CelticBaller]

Loved it, I rather have the Heat having a dynasty than a Laker superteam

[chazzy]

Bynum would likely still be here if the trade went through. Dwight trade never would of happened.

Why not? This would've increased Dwight's desire to come to/stay in LA. The Lakers only traded Bynum for Dwight and he wasn't involved in the CP3 deal.

[ballup]

Get all the senses you want, but that isn't why I started this thread.

My topic was based on the injustice of the veto, not how many titles Lakers would of won.

So what's the injustice?

[poido123]

How exactly is it wrong for the owner of a team to veto a trade? Clippers owner almost vetoed the Reddick trade this summer. Not exactly a big deal.

David Stern's veto of the Chris Paul trade contains so much kaleidoscoping bullshit that it seems more than worth it to lay out just some of the bullshit:

1.) David Stern had to veto the deal because he spent months selling a bullshit lockout on the bullshit grounds that the league needed competitive balance, and that taking players' money and restricting their movement would help achieve it. This was (and remains) bullshit for all the reasons Henry Abbott explained again and again, but it was (and remains) effective bullshit. It was so effective that small-market owners apparently began shrieking the moment they heard that Chris Paul could be going to the Lakers, panicked by their bullshit concern that the rich were about to get richer anyway. Even though that, too, was bullshit (as we'll explain). Stern has sold his competitive-balance bullshit for a long time, and at some point I guess he began smoking his own supply.

2.) Stern further had to veto the deal because some NBA owners are still inflamed by their bullshit fear of "superteams," i.e. the Miami Heat (a team that Stern once said was good for the NBA, which wasn't bullshit). The owners' bullshit fear was further stoked by the bullshit specter of Chris Paul strong-arming his way to a perennially successful franchise of his choosing. This is bullshit because the NBA owners created their own bogeyman. Their bullshit lockout of 1998-99 was about controlling maximum salaries, which kept star players from getting paid their full value. Once bullshit max contracts were the rule, the less appealing franchises couldn't spend extra to attract or retain players, leaving Cleveland to compete with Miami head to head, as a destination. This encouraged stars to make decisions for more than money. If LeBron James or Chris Paul is going to get roughly the same deal wherever he goes, why not go to a city he likes where he can play basketball with talented friends and win a lot of games? Maybe you think that's bullshit, but that's exactly what stars are incentivized to do under the max-contract regime, which, as I say, is the real bullshit here.

3.) The Paul trade was a bad deal for the Lakers and a good one for the Hornets, the small-market team whose bullshit interests all those angry owners—and Stern, too, as Hornets owner in loco parentis—were supposedly defending. I'm with John Hollinger: The Hornets weren't going to find a better return on Paul than what they would've gotten in the deal (Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic, plus the Knicks' first-round pick), and what little leverage they had in the trade market for Paul has now been shot to hell and gone. The Lakers would've had a great pick-and-roll point guard with no one left to pick and roll with him. Superteam? Bullshit.

4.) "When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?" obstreperous bullshitter Dan Gilbert said in a message to Stern, apparently written in the sort of pleading, self-pitying prose one finds in prison letters. Here's the bullshit thing about that: You are the Washington Generals. You have always been the Washington Generals, and until the NBA goes commie and starts arming the peasantry and redistributing the land—a la the NFL—you will go on being the Washington Generals. All sports are rigged to one degree or another. The NFL is rigged so that everyone is the Washington Generals. MLB is rigged so that the Washington Generals, upon receiving their annual bribe, are mostly content to remain the Washington Generals. And, yes, the NBA is rigged so that a handful of teams—the teams the general public actually likes to watch on TV—get to enjoy their native blessings, and everyone else is the Washington Generals.

5.) So here's what we have: caterwauling small-market owners, having swallowed the competitive-balance bullshit, having just won a bullshit labor war to Make the World Safe for NBA Owners without actually doing anything to address their bullshit casus belli, prevailing upon the main purveyor of bullshit in the NBA to spike a good deal for their fellow franchise in New Orleans almost entirely out of bullshit concerns over the bullshit possibility of another superteam. It's really perfect, in a way: David Stern just sacrificed the Hornets at the altar of his own bullshit.



I would like to add, if it was just a regular GM decision then nobody would have a problem with it. The fact that Stern was in control of NO and made this decision was fishy to say the least and the above reasons that I found from an article explains it in more detail.

[CelticBaller]

So what's the injustice?

The Lakers not forming a super team to stop LeBron

[poido123]

The Lakers not forming a super team to stop LeBron

I'd appreciate if you didn't derail the thread by mentioning Lebron. This is to do with the injustice of the Veto.

[longtime lurker]

[QUOTE=poido123]David Stern's veto of the Chris Paul trade contains so much kaleidoscoping bullshit that it seems more than worth it to lay out just some of the bullshit:

1.) David Stern had to veto the deal because he spent months selling a bullshit lockout on the bullshit grounds that the league needed competitive balance, and that taking players' money and restricting their movement would help achieve it. This was (and remains) bullshit for all the reasons Henry Abbott explained again and again, but it was (and remains) effective bullshit. It was so effective that small-market owners apparently began shrieking the moment they heard that Chris Paul could be going to the Lakers, panicked by their bullshit concern that the rich were about to get richer anyway. Even though that, too, was bullshit (as we'll explain). Stern has sold his competitive-balance bullshit for a long time, and at some point I guess he began smoking his own supply.

2.) Stern further had to veto the deal because some NBA owners are still inflamed by their bullshit fear of "superteams," i.e. the Miami Heat (a team that Stern once said was good for the NBA, which wasn't bullshit). The owners' bullshit fear was further stoked by the bullshit specter of Chris Paul strong-arming his way to a perennially successful franchise of his choosing. This is bullshit because the NBA owners created their own bogeyman. Their bullshit lockout of 1998-99 was about controlling maximum salaries, which kept star players from getting paid their full value. Once bullshit max contracts were the rule, the less appealing franchises couldn't spend extra to attract or retain players, leaving Cleveland to compete with Miami head to head, as a destination. This encouraged stars to make decisions for more than money. If LeBron James or Chris Paul is going to get roughly the same deal wherever he goes, why not go to a city he likes where he can play basketball with talented friends and win a lot of games? Maybe you think that's bullshit, but that's exactly what stars are incentivized to do under the max-contract regime, which, as I say, is the real bullshit here.

3.) The Paul trade was a bad deal for the Lakers and a good one for the Hornets, the small-market team whose bullshit interests all those angry owners

[RoundMoundOfReb]

I would like to add, if it was just a regular GM decision then nobody would have a problem with it. The fact that Stern was in control of NO and made this decision was fishy to say the least and the above reasons that I found from an article explains it in more detail.

Whoever owns the team is irrelevant. Hornets were getting an absolutely crappy deal from a basketball POV. The Clippers deal was much better at the time.

[Fiasco]

Come on guys, Chris Paul isn't even that good.

[longtime lurker]

Whoever owns the team is irrelevant. Hornets were getting an absolutely crappy deal from a basketball POV. The Clippers deal was much better at the time.

Actually it's very relevant. It's a huge conflict of interest for the NBA own a team. Either you give your GM full autonomy to make moves or you hold a moratorium on any moves until the team is sold.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

Actually it's very relevant. It's a huge conflict of interest for the NBA own a team. Either you give your GM full autonomy to make moves or you hold a moratorium on any moves until the team is sold.

That is a separate issue. They had owned that team before the trade went down. It's not like the trade was going to happen and then the NBA decided to just take them over to block the trade.

My point is: Considering the League owned the team, they have every right to interfere with personnel moves.

I'm not debating whether the league should "own" a team or not.

[poido123]

So what's the injustice?

The injustice is that Stern was able to make a decision based on "competitive balance" while running a basketball team as GM. That is NOT the role of a GM to make such a decision with higher level matters affecting his decision. Conflict of interest.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

The injustice is that Stern was able to make a decision based on "competitive balance" while running a basketball team as GM. That is NOT the role of a GM to make such a decision with higher level matters affecting his decision. Conflict of interest.

There is no proof that he made the decision based on "competitive balance". Likely he like most sane people realized the return they were getting was awful.

[ispin69]

League owned the team. Stop crying, get over it.
You're mad you didn't get away with robbery.
All trades must be accepted by the league anyways.