What the hell just happened? Not one, but two Chris Paul trades are dead. The first one is more shameful than the second one. The now infamous three way trade that never happened. NOLA was going to send Paul to LA for Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol. Then flip Gasol to Houston for Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and a 2012 first round draft pick. NOLA got three quality starters in that deal plus a pick. The trade gets submitted and we all know what happens next. The league’s other 27 owners cry (especially Cleveland’s Dan GIlbert) and David Stern rejects the trade… Um what? Stating it was for basketball reasons, excuse me? You’re trading a guy who has said he’s leaving for 3 starters and a first rounder. How does that get any better? And they are three good starters. Three guys who can still help you make the playoffs and make the team relevant to a prospective buyer. But for “basketball reasons” the league wants the hornets to keep Paul. You know because they didn’t resign his two time all star power forward back. That also must be for those same “basketball reasons”. Honestly nothing makes me more angry than getting blatantly lied to with a straight face. This has set a scary precedent. Every trade has to be approved by the league. What if they start to declare other trades are unfair. It’s not the league’s place to rule there. Yes, I know the league runs the hornets. But they said they would let the hornets front office handle all of the roster moves with no interference. Kind of like how they made that Carl Landry trade last year and took $3 million more on in salary. That was plenty fine though. Wasn’t it Mr. Stern?
Now lets move to the Clippers trade. NOLA would send CP3 and LA would send Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and a 2012 first round pick. Yet the league, I repeat the league not the Hornets. The league didn’t want to do the deal because Eric Bledsoe wasn’t included. Are you kidding me? Are you trying to screw every team? Really? Again a trade that offers three starters and a pick and that isn’t good enough for the league. So the Clippers stopped talking and claimed Chauncey “I’ve only hit one big shot in my career, but I inexplicably got the nickname Mr. Big Shot” Billups off of waivers. Which means they cannot trade him until July 1, 2012. Because Billups was amnestied by the Knicks.
For Chris Paul’s sake I hope he gets traded. But for the league’s sake, I hope he doesn’t then he leaves for the bigger market like he wants to and the league can’t sell the team because it got nothing in return for a player who wanted to leave. Regardless what the league says, this was the other small owners not wanting to see a star player leave. Guess what, it’s going to happen. It’s always happened. Kareem didn’t stay in Milwaukee. Shaq didn’t stay in Orlando. Stars leave for bigger markets. It’s always happened and it will continue to. Not all stars will leave but there will be some that do. And guess what to keep your team continuing to be successful without that player. You have to trade them before they leave via free agency. That’s your choice or you turn out like Toronto after Bosh left. And teams that bad are never good for the league.
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