451 replies to this topic

[Beomoose]

Right, but if they do so for reasons other than the best interest of the Hornets, they're on the wrong side of an already blatant conflict of interest. Despite what Stern says, I can't find a credible argument that this decision makes the Hornets better off. Especially if, as Simmons alluded to in his article, the message wasn't just "not this trade" but "Paul has to spend the entire year in New Orleans".

Well after Seattle and Donaghy I think it's fairly clear that Stern has no problem being on the wrong side of a COI, and there's no mechanism in place to watchdog him. So nothing new there. If nothing else this fracas should be a reminder to everyione celebrating the NBA returning like it was a Christmas Miracle that very little actually got "fixed."

[nighthob]

Yep, the owner(s) who have a ridiculous conflict of interest and no justifiable reason to veto the deal.

They have multiple financial reasons for rejecting the trade. And as the deal specifically required the Hornets to renounce David West it's actually worse than you're representing. The "young talent" was a soon-to-be 29 year old shooting guard that's had about two healthy seasons in his NBA career. And the Hornets shiny new payroll, and utter lack of talent would have depressed the franchise's resale value, just as the NBA owners were hopeful of breaking even on the deal.

So, yeah, asking the league to absorb an extra $15 million in payroll this year, combined with plummeting attendance means that the other 28 guys were being asked to finance LA's dream of Superfriends West. Ultimately if this three way deal involved the Knicks, Stoudemire and Billups the reaction would have been the same, because the NBA owned team would be the one getting stuck with the overpriced flotsam and the guy benefitting would have been one of the richest in the NBA.

[radsoxfan]

Actually, by creating a trade exception large enough for Turk it cleared the decks for a Howard trade.

Trade exception helps, but but not nearly as much as losing 2 of your 3 best trade chips hurts. Bynum alone is almost surely not enough to get Howard, and the Lakers now have nothing else to trade.

It was going to take Bynum/Gasol in all likelihood, and if the Paul trade goes through, that option is off the table.

[irishtap03]

I wonder if they now bring in Bynum and Okafor as part of the trade.

LA: CP3/Okafor
Hou: Gasol
NO: Bynum/Scola/etc...

this deal scares me more. Okafor is actually a good player and would be a solid replacement for Bynum.

CP3
Bryant
The artist formerly known as Artest
Odom
Oakfor

The only good part is it takes them out of the running for Howard.

[Brickowski]

If I'm Hornet's ownership (i.e. the league) the issue for me is simple: substitute Bynum for Odom and CP3 can go to the Lakers.

[Super Nomario]

If I'm Hornet's ownership (i.e. the league) the issue for me is simple: substitute Bynum for Odom and CP3 can go to the Lakers.

Bynum makes like $5 MM more than Odom, per NBA trade machine. If the objection is $$ related, I don't see this flying either.

[scottyno]

If I'm Hornet's ownership (i.e. the league) the issue for me is simple: substitute Bynum for Odom and CP3 can go to the Lakers.

non starter with the lakers, they can't give up gasol and bynum and not get a big back

[Brickowski]

non starter with the lakers, they can't give up gasol and bynum and not get a big back

Let them take Thabeet.

[scottyno]

I'm sure danny is already on the phone, though who knows the potential fallout if paul were to be traded somewhere that's not the lakers at this point, quotes from demps:

"We've been given autonomy to make another trade"

"everything is back on the table"

[Brickowski]

The union has threatened to sue if the deal isn't done by Monday. It's probably an idle threat, since most CBA's require arbitration of labor-management issues, but who knows? Teams can't sue the league either: I believe there is a provision in the NBA constitution that prevents this.

Edited by Brickowski, 09 December 2011 - 06:10 PM.

[SoxScout]

Ken Berger 1m
In resumption of CP3-Lakers talks with Houston, Hornets under directive from NBA to get younger players, quality picks in deal, souces say.

https://twitter.com/#!/KBergCBS/status/145279863983583232

[RedOctober3829]

This league is a joke. Now they want NO to get younger players and picks. So does that mean LA could get Paul w/o giving up Gasol or Bynum? They better give up Bynum if this is the case.

Danny better be in there offering Rondo, Green, and the 2 1st rounders and maybe a future 1st.

[Mystic Merlin]

I can't imagine the NBA would allow Paul to go to Boston at this point. Jerry Buss would have a conniption, and it would look very bad for the league, even worse than the current situation.

[Marbleheader]

Paul has to land n LA, I agree. I do fully expect Danny's trying to get in the thick of this.

[snowmanny]

I can't imagine the NBA would allow Paul to go to Boston at this point. Jerry Buss would have a conniption, and it would look very bad for the league, even worse than the current situation.

Well, isn't the issue really about money? And who knows if Buss wants to make a deal if the dollar equation is way less favorable for him.

[Mystic Merlin]

Well, isn't the issue really about money? And who knows if Buss wants to make a deal if the dollar equation is way less favorable for him.

Besides my point - the politics of it would make a potential Paul-to-Boston deal untenable for the NBA, IMO. Whether Buss would want to do a different package or not, it would look like the NBA imposing - or, at least, permitting - a double standard to carry the day. This is obviously an enormously contentious issue among the owners, and - as we've seen - not all of them are taking it in stride; I doubt Jerry Buss would come out and say 'we weren't gonna pay up anyways'....he'll say 'we got fucked out of Paul in the first instance, and now Boston is allowed to swoop in.'

[RedOctober3829]

Exactly snowmanny. If the Lakers aren't clearing as much salary out of there (say Gasol and Odom are off the table) maybe Buss isn't as inclined to do it. Green, a boatload of picks, Martin, Budinger to NO andRondo to Houston might get it done if they want young players and picks.

[radsoxfan]

Not sure there are many good picks/young players in LA or Houston to make the deal any better.

At the same time, Gasol and either Odom or Bynum better be in the final version of the deal. If LA keeps 2 of those 3, then they actually are players for Howard.

[Mike in CT]

The problem for LA is that they had a deal for a PF after the Paul trade was done.

We don't know who it was, but a PF pickup fits much better with Bynum than with Gasol.

The Lakers have to give up Bynum, Odom, picks, and take Okafor imo, minimum.

[Brickowski]

This league is a joke. Now they want NO to get younger players and picks. So does that mean LA could get Paul w/o giving up Gasol or Bynum? They better give up Bynum if this is the case.

Danny better be in there offering Rondo, Green, and the 2 1st rounders and maybe a future 1st.

Why does this make the league a joke? As the deal stood the Hornets were getting a 32 year-old Odom, a 31 year-old Scola and a 28 year-old Martin who has had significant injury issues. There were zero building blocks in the deal. Stern was right to reject it. If, as the owner of a team, you have the leverage to force a better deal. why not do it?

Edited by Brickowski, 09 December 2011 - 07:15 PM.

[RedOctober3829]

Because all parties agreed on the terms. The NBA was informed on every step of the process and didn't interject until the deal was complete. The only reason it didn't go through is because a select few owners bitched to Stern. Now, they let NO resume talks and why? Now, as a Celtics fan Ill be happy if they eventually land Paul but the whole process is all fucked up. As the owner of the franchise,they should have layed the terms out to Demps before Demps tried to trade him. Now, they look like they stopped the trade because LA got him (right or wrong its the perception)

[Brickowski]

No, the Hornets did not agree to the terms. The team's management had not given its final approval.The GM wanted to do a deal and the owner said no. Why is this such a difficult concept for folks to grasp?

Edited by Brickowski, 09 December 2011 - 07:56 PM.

[Jed Zeppelin]

It's not difficult so much as shady because of the status of the team's ownership.

[ivanvamp]

No, the Hornets did not agree to the terms. The team's management had not given its final approval.The GM wanted to do a deal and the owner said no. Why is this such a difficult concept for folks to grasp?

Part of the issue here is that the league essentially (if you believe the Simmons story) gave the Hornets GM the authority to make deals. He made the best deal he could get. The only reason the deal didn't go through is because some owners whined that the Lakers would be too good (the "Washington Generals" comment). THAT is the problem. It had nothing to do with whether the deal was good for New Orleans. It had everything to do with the other owners being crybabies.

[Marbleheader]

All this chaos got me thinking that I respect the hell out of Kevin Durant. Quietly signs a 5 year extension last summer (to play in Oklahoma of all places) and hardly generates a buzz.

[Super Nomario]

All this chaos got me thinking that I respect the hell out of Kevin Durant. Quietly signs a 5 year extension last summer (to play in Oklahoma of all places) and hardly generates a buzz.

... and Chris Paul extended with New Orleans after his third season, and Dwight Howard signed an extension after his third season, and LeBron signed an extension after his third season. Maybe Durant is cut from a different cloth, but we'll see if OK doesn't look like a contender in three years.

[SemperFidelisSox]

ESPNSteinLine Marc Stein

ESPN sources: Hornets/Lakers/Rockets cautiously optimistic they'll have reworked CP3 trade to present to NBA perhaps as soon as Saturday

Specific changes to deal not immediately known but teams working through night to infuse CP3 deal w/enough youth and/or picks to satisfy NBA

[mahky bellhorn]

... and Chris Paul extended with New Orleans after his third season, and Dwight Howard signed an extension after his third season, and LeBron signed an extension after his third season. Maybe Durant is cut from a different cloth, but we'll see if OK doesn't look like a contender in three years.

Durant signed for 5 years guaranteed, other guys had an early termination option after year 3 of their extension so they could go hang with their buds.

[nighthob]

Trade exception helps, but but not nearly as much as losing 2 of your 3 best trade chips hurts. Bynum alone is almost surely not enough to get Howard, and the Lakers now have nothing else to trade.

Brad Lopez is considerably less valuable than you think. Odom isn't a "trade chip" to a rebuilding squad. He's salary ballast. Especially where New Orleans and Orlando are concerned (because their only assets would be their own first round picks). The Lakers two best trade chips were Bynum and Gasol. Only one of them went in the Paul trade.

[radsoxfan]

Brad Lopez is considerably less valuable than you think. Odom isn't a "trade chip" to a rebuilding squad. He's salary ballast. Especially where New Orleans and Orlando are concerned (because their only assets would be their own first round picks). The Lakers two best trade chips were Bynum and Gasol. Only one of them went in the Paul trade.

They needed both of those major trade chips to get Howard. Orlando is going to get much better offers than just Bynum for Howard.

[nighthob]

I can't imagine the NBA would allow Paul to go to Boston at this point. Jerry Buss would have a conniption, and it would look very bad for the league, even worse than the current situation.

If Boston were reducing the Hornets' payroll (i.e. working out a way to take back Okafor or Ariza in the deal) thus improving the Hornets' financials for the rest of the owners it absolutely would go through. And that'd be true of any trade scenario.

Most of the owners know they don't own squads that will ever compete for a title (do you really think anyone in Milwaukee expects to see a title in their lifetime?). So I don't think that they care about another superteam as much as the tinfoil hat crowd is declaring. Because ultimately it may as well be happening in another league. What's pissing them off in this case is that the proposed trade savaged the Hornets' resale value, so the other 28 guys were being asked to pay for the Lakers' aspirations. Dollars to donuts that Dolan, Arison, et all couldn't have cared less if they tried (because they're already filthy with the green and have their own superteams). But the Sarvers, Gilberts, et all were all absolutely livid about the Lakers future assistant GM trying to stick them with the check for Jerry Buss' binge.

[ElUno20]

After all the bitching and moaning looks like he'll end up in LA after all.

[nighthob]

Part of the issue here is that the league essentially (if you believe the Simmons story) gave the Hornets GM the authority to make deals.

Yes and no. All trades had to be approved by the board of governors. Simmons and others are actually citing the league's approval of a trade that Demps made last season. But the Landry trade was still submitted for approval and some of the owners objected to it because it meant that the payroll went up and cost them money. Think about that for a moment. Some of the other NBA owners objected to the Hornets payroll going up by a couple of million. And now understand that the trade v1 upped the payroll by $60 million, while destroying the resale value by that very act.

They needed both of those major trade chips to get Howard. Orlando is going to get much better offers than just Bynum for Howard.

Not if they have to trade him to the Nets they're not.

[SemperFidelisSox]

After all the bitching and moaning looks like he'll end up in LA after all.

And LA is one of the three teams Howard has permission to talk too, along with New Jersey and Dallas. I wonder if all the rumors of Howard demanding a trade to NJ today and allegedly talking to Prokhorov were because he figured Stern had ended any chance of him playing with Paul in Los Angeles. So he went with Plan B, playing with D-Will in Jersey. But now that the Paul to LA trade is being reworked, his first choice is still to play in Los Angeles.

[nighthob]

It might be his first choice, but with the West deal New Orleans can't absorb enough money to generate a large trade exception thus clearing the decks for Howard. New Jersey can still eat Turk's contract so the Magic might prefer that deal for financial reasons, even if all they're getting is Fluffy Lopez.

[kazuneko]

It might be his first choice, but with the West deal New Orleans can't absorb enough money to generate a large trade exception thus clearing the decks for Howard. New Jersey can still eat Turk's contract so the Magic might prefer that deal for financial reasons, even if all they're getting is Fluffy Lopez.

Not getting this, though I know Hollinger implied the same. The addition of O'Neal is most likely temporary and his contract is almost certainly to be included in some type of expanded Lakers trade. Big expiring contracts do not usually block trades - more often they help facilitate them when a potential trade partner is getting rid of a larger contract than you're sending them. In the original CP3 trade adding O'Neal might have been an issue, but considering that they went out of their way to acquire O'Neal's expiring contract you can be damn sure that it has value to them, and that mean it will be used to facilitate -not block - a CP3 trade.
Now, I'm not saying I know what that expanded and/or entirely new CP3 trade is but you can be certain that if the West trade goes through that at some point after that there will be a CP3 trade that in some way uses that O'Neal contract as part of it.

Edited by kazuneko, 10 December 2011 - 04:23 AM.

[Infield Infidel]

If the owners were serious about trying to stop players forcing their way to bigger markets, they should have tied giving up a first round pick to signing a top tier FA, or to trade for a guy in the last year of their contract. Probably would work better in the NBA than in MLB. A first round draft pick is worth way more in the NBA than in MLB, especially an early first rounder. That's really the only thing of value that could generate a quality, young team in smaller markets. And if a team didn't have a first rounder? Then they couldn't sign the guy, or would have to send other compensation.

Would Dan Gilbert have been so pissed if he got Miami's 2010 first rounder? Probably, but it would have lessened the blow to the team.

Edited by Infield Infidel, 10 December 2011 - 03:54 AM.

[kazuneko]

If the owners were serious about trying to stop players forcing their way to bigger markets, it seems to me that giving up a first round pick to sign a top tier FA, or to trade for a guy in the last year of their contract. Probably would work better in the NBA than in MLB. A first round draft pick is worth way more in the NBA than in MLB, especially an early first rounder. That's really the only thing of value that could generate a quality, young team in smaller markets. And if a team didn't have a first rounder? Then they couldn't sign the guy, or would have to send other compensation.

Would Dan Gilbert have been so pissed if he got Miami's 2010 first rounder? Probably, but it would have lessened the blow to the team.

Yeah..problem is the big market teams and the players would be against it. Which is the exact coalition that prevented any serious changes from occurring with this last CBA.

[Infield Infidel]

Yeah..problem is the big market teams and the players would be against it. Which is the exact coalition that prevented any serious changes from occurring with this last CBA.

The owners wanted such a cut to payrolls that all the changes they made to restrict movement was lipstick on a pig. They certainly had the votes (25 Washington Generals and all), and if they'd giving a percent or two more to the players they could have brought them along.

Or the could just move teams from small markets (NO, Charlotte, Milw, Minny) to better ones (Seattle, Anaheim, Vegas, St Louis).

[kazuneko]

The owners wanted such a cut to payrolls that all the changes they made to restrict movement was lipstick on a pig. They certainly had the votes (25 Washington Generals and all), and if they'd giving a percent or two more to the players they could have brought them along.

Or the could just move teams from small markets (NO, Charlotte, Milw, Minny) to better ones (Seattle, Anaheim, Vegas, St Louis).

True...
But I'm not even impressed with their attempts to cut payroll either. Honestly, I really don't get how it is that the small market majority went along with this latest CBA.

Edited by kazuneko, 10 December 2011 - 05:24 AM.

[Brickowski]

I'll say it again: if the Lakers get CP3 without Bynum going to the Hornets then the deal is a joke and Stern ought to be fired.

[Grin&MartyBarret]

It might be his first choice, but with the West deal New Orleans can't absorb enough money to generate a large trade exception thus clearing the decks for Howard. New Jersey can still eat Turk's contract so the Magic might prefer that deal for financial reasons, even if all they're getting is Fluffy Lopez.

I think the deal would be structured with a sign + trade of Humphries to a 3rd team, who would also send players to Orlando in addition to Lopez.

[Brickowski]

Right, so the new MO is for players to shoot their way out of town the year before they become FAs rather than after. It took players and agents all of one day to figure this out; you think the owners would have anticipated it.

Super Nomario has nailed this problem. The limitations on sign and trades in the new CBA make the big stars leave small markets sooner rather than later.

Edited by Brickowski, 10 December 2011 - 09:52 AM.

[axx]

http://espn.go.com/l...ade-resubmitted

Trade resubmitted.

[Brickowski]

In the unlikely event that justice is going to be served in all of these dealings, Bynum is going to the Hornets and JO will become a Laker. My guess is that the Hornets will also get a couple of youngsters from the Celtics, starting with Avery Bradley.

[Ed Hillel]

Is this basically a 3-team deal involving both the Celtics and Lakers?

I may puke.

[Jed Zeppelin]

At least Danny's not operating under any illusions that he can sign a superstar to play here. Doing the best he can under sub-optimal circumstances.

Edited by Jed Zeppelin, 10 December 2011 - 01:38 PM.

[Nomar813]

Is this basically a 3-team deal involving both the Celtics and Lakers?

I may puke.

ESPN still has the Rockets involved.

[Riles335]

At least Danny's not operating under any illusions that he can sign a superstar to play here. Doing the best he can under sub-optimal circumstances.

That is true but it also doesn't disallow them from offering a max deal moving forward. Leaves them plenty of flexibility and wiggle room.

[Cellar-Door]

The rumor is that the two deals are unrelated. The Hornets are going to dump Okafor's contract on the lakers, getting Ebanks Caracter and possibly a pick back. The only relation to the Celtics deal is that Jermaine will likely be their new starting center.

Edit- To clarify the rest of the 3 way deal stays the same.
NO gives Chris Paul and Emeka Okafor
NO receives- Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, Derrick Caracter, Devin Ebanks NYK 2012 1st, (maybe a 2nd pick)
LA gives- Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Derrick Caracter, Devin Ebanks, (possibly a pick)
LA gets- Chris Paul, Emeka Okafor
HOU gives- Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, NYK 2012 1st
HOU gets- Pau Gasol

Edited by Cellar-Door, 10 December 2011 - 01:46 PM.