This is from a thread I made on realgm:
First off, let me just say that I hate Stern. I am not defending him generally. He should have been fired, drawn, and quartered for a million other offenses.
But not for this. Here's what happened:
Yesterday, a deal was agreed to in principle where New Orleans sends Chris Paul to the Lakers, L.A. sends Lamar Odom to New Orleans and Pau Gasol to Houston, and Houston sends Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic and a 2012 draft pick (which they received from NY, a pick that would be in the mid 20s) to New Orleans. When I heard this I started the first draft of my suicide note because I knew this meant Dwight Howard would likely be joining the Lakers soon as well (they kept Bynum as the major trade piece for Dwight), giving us a league dominated by Miami and L.A. for the next decade. Within an hour, Commissioner Stern disallowed the trade. Everyone went crazy saying he was doing something unprecedented and generally being a dictatorial ****. The media, who love anything and everything Laker, immediately spun this into Stern using his power as Commissioner to veto a trade he didn't agree with, something which admittedly never happens.
The problem is, that's not what happened at all.Let's rewind to December of last year really quick: Last year, George Shinn -- owner of the New Orleans Hornets -- could no longer afford to operate his franchise. Unfortunately, nobody was willing to buy the New Orleans Hornets, a team and city still in shambles from Hurricane Katrina. So, in an unprecedented move, the NBA itself purchased the team for $300 million. What does this mean? This means the 29 owners of the other NBA franchises effectively own the Hornets as well. Mark Cuban and Wyc Grousbeck and Jerry Buss and the rest are all shareholders in the Hornets, each with a 1/29 share. They each split up the $300 million cost and paid for this share. Any and all salaries on the roster are split and paid by these 29 other owners. Commissioner Stern, as representative of the owners, is in a sense the owners' de facto representative of Hornets ownership. In this totally weird situation, David Stern is effectively New Orleans's Mark Cuban. Since this had never happened before, and questions arose about inevitable conflicts of interest, the league hired Dell Demps to be the general manager of the Hornets and essentially let him run the team. The rest of the owners still owned the Hornets, mind you, but the team was being run by Demps.
Now, as with any trade, the team's general manager has to take an offer he likes to his owner and ask for approval, since the owner is the one signing the checks. This happens everyday in trades. When Danny Ainge finds a trade he likes, he has to go to Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck to get final approval. Owners can and have turned down trades from their general managers for business reasons. Even if the trade would help the team in the short term talent-wise, owners have nixed them for fear that the trade will hurt the franchise financially. And this is exactly what happened yesterday. Dell Demps agreed to a trade in principle, a point that has to emphasized since trades couldn't officially be made till today anyway. Stern, in his role as representative of the owners of the Hornets (i.e. the other 29 owners), said "no deal, the trade hurts the franchise." The media, in its typical moronic fashion, totally missed this point and said the deal was done (again, it wasn't; no trade could even be made till today) and that Stern "vetoed" it in his capacity as NBA Commissioner (also false). And that's how things go with the likes of ESPN.
Now why would Stern say the trade was bad for the Hornets? To understand this, we have to first ascertain what the Hornets should want in a trade at this point. They're losing their star player, they are clearly in rebuild mode, and they are looking to be sold to a potential buyer. With that in mind, the franchise should want: 1) a young stud or two, 2) high draft picks, especially in this year's draft which is slated to be one of the best drafts in recent history, and 3) reasonable contracts that won't cripple the franchise. They
don't want bloated long-term contracts (this significantly hurts the chances a buyer will want to buy the franchise). They
don't want just enough good-but-not-great players to barely miss the playoffs every year, i.e. to stay mediocre, to do well enough to never get good draft picks but also never be able to contend.
What did the Lakers trade get them? Exactly what they didn't want! They didn't get any young studs. They got 31-year old Luis Scola, with 4 years $40 million left on his contract. They got 32-year old Lamar Odom, who is a good player but nothing great and has 3 years $27 million left on his contract. They got a 28-year old Kevin Martin, a player who is talented but not All-star caliber and who also happens to have the brittle body of a 45-year old. They got Goran Dragic; woohoo I guess? And they got a draft pick that will be in the mid 20s. And they got all this for the awesome price of
taking on $70 million onto their payroll. What?
?
Boston was willing to give them Rajon Rondo (on a great deal, mind you), Jeff Green, and two draft picks (one of which would likely end up being between pick 11 and 14 this year, since it was from the Clippers). A young stud, good contracts, a young guy with potential in Green, and a better draft pick. And yet Dell Demps turned this down. This was a much better package for New Orleans, especially when you consider their goals. Would Martin, Scola, and Odom make the team better in the short term? Yes, most likely. But that's not what we're discussing here. These are business decisions. The team would have been much better served with Boston's package in the long run, and that's what matters when you're trying to sell the franchise. A potential buyer doesn't care that this team will win 40 games each season for the next few seasons. A potential buyer wants a young team on lean contracts, with potential. A potential buyer wants a high pick in this upcoming stacked draft, to be able to get a rookie that can end up maybe being the new face of the franchise in a few years. The owner doesn't want 3 guys in their 30s or close to it.
When you look at it from the perspectives of the 29 other owners who own the Hornets, suddenly it makes a lot of sense why the owners were in an uproar and asked Stern to not approve the trade. In this trade, the Lakers were
getting the best player and all the salary cap savings. This
never happens. Dan Gilbert made a great point about this and I can't emphasize this enough, in spite of my overall disdain for Gilbert. The Lakers got the best player in the trade AND saved $20 million this year, and didn't even give up any draft picks. Because of this, the Lakers saved an additional $20 million in luxury tax. Mind you, luxury tax paid by a team goes into a pool that is distributed to the non-luxury-tax teams at the end of the year, as a sort of bonus for teams that stayed under the luxury tax threshold. The other non-tax owners would have been denied the extra $20 million the Lakers should have paid in luxury tax to them.
So, in effect, you have the other 29 owners who own the Hornets 1) footing the bill of the $70 million in salary taken back by the Hornets over the next few years, assuming a buyer isn't found, 2) being denied the luxury tax disbursement they would have gotten by the Lakers, and 3) being put in a tougher situation trying to sell the team to a potential buyer since the team is worse off in the long run. And all this good stuff for what? For the
honor of gifting a top 5 player in Chris Paul to the Lakers, who would then undoubtedly be used to start another dynasty.
Of course the owners (who again, mind you, control the Hornets) wouldn't sign off on this. It makes zero sense for all parties involved, except for the Lakers.
To give you an idea of what the Hornets should have been after, the most analogous example is Utah trading Deron Williams last year. It's especially apt since Chris Paul and Deron Williams are the top 2 point guards in the league. Utah moved Williams to New Jersey for Derrick Favors (a highly rated big man prospect who was just taken with the 3rd pick), two first round picks, and Devin Harris. They saved money, got a young big man with a lot of potential who may be the future face of the franchise, a young point guard who is on an okay deal, and two high picks in the 2011 and 2012 drafts. When you compare what Utah got with what New Orleans did, Utah totally made out like bandits. They're now in full rebuild mode, and will do much better in the long run than New Orleans would have.
Why did Demps do this trade then? A few reasons. Dell Demps made a good 'fantasy basketball' move. He made the team better in the very short term. He doesn't care about the business side of things. He's not the owner. He's not the one selling the team. He made the team better this year, since Chris Paul was going to leave anyway. And this is why stupid media pundits are "praising" him for what he was able to get. Cause they don't see the big picture either. Most importantly, Dell Demps was looking out for himself. He can turn around and pad his resume: "I lost Chris Paul but was still able to get pieces to have a 40-win team and sneak into the playoffs. I'm a great GM." The Hornets ownership (i.e. the rest of the league) stepped in and didn't approve cause it hurt the team when you look at the big picture.
Most importantly -- and this is somewhat conspiracy theory-ish -- Demps was forced into this position by Chris Paul. By all indications, the Hornets were about to make the trade with the Celtics. It was so close, in fact, that it was reported that Boston had ordered physicals on Chris Paul, which is one of the last steps teams take before a deal is done. Then, literally within the span of an hour, the deal fell apart, and the Lakers swooped in. What happened? As has been reported over the past week, Paul made it clear he didn't want to play in Boston. He said he wouldn't sign an extension. He wanted to go to a big market, notably New York. This resistance made teams like Golden State, the Clippers, and initially Boston back off. But Ainge changed his mind and, with immense testicular fortitude, decided he'd take the risk on Chris Paul being a 1-season rental. He was willing to gamble that he could get Paul to re-up for another contract after this year. Chris Paul was trying to use the only leverage he had - a threat that he would leave whatever team got him for a big market after this season - in order to secure a trade to New York or another big market and still be able to get the maximum amount of money. Paul would have to forego at least $24 million if he left whatever team he was traded to and signed with New York, so obviously it was vastly to his benefit if he was able to get traded to whatever team he wanted to right now, and re-up with them after the year. The problem was Ainge effectively called his bluff, by being willing to take the risk that Paul would not actually give up all that money and leave after the year. Ainge was daring Paul to put his money where his mouth is.
What follows is speculation:And this is where I get real conspiratorial (tip of the hat to some realgm posters who speculated about this). I think with the Boston deal about to go down, Chris Paul and his agent basically told Ainge he wouldn't report to the team if he was traded to Boston.
Note: Chris Paul's agent is with CAA, the world's largest mega-agency, which also represents over 100 other players and exerts considerable influence on GMs since they can blacklist franchises in trades/signings for their other clients if the GMs don't listen to them, Mafia-style.
This was the only leverage Chris Paul had, the last threat he could make. And cause of this, the deal fell apart. All that was left was the awful, awful trade from the Lakers. Chris Paul held his team hostage, and they were forced to deal with a big market team (the Lakers) in order to get a deal done. And Dell Demps was happy to oblige, of course, cause on the surface it looks like the team got a pretty good haul. This is all speculative but the timeline fits, and when you hear Stern yesterday say the league is "tired of players dictating where they get to go in trades," well it all starts to makes sense.
Topic: No Question. Stern Did What Was Best For Hornet's Future (Read 15511 times)