Stern sheds some light on the infamous CP3 trade veto

David Stern further expounded on his controversial decision to veto a trade in 2011 for "basketball reasons" that would have seen the New Orleans Pelicans trade Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Pelicans and Lakers agreed upon a three-way trade with the Houston Rockets involving Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

"(My decision) was only based on what was good for New Orleans, or what was not good for New Orleans," said David Stern. "It had nothing to do with the Lakers at all. And in fact, in the course of the weekend, we thought we could re-do the deal. We really thought that Houston would be ready to part with Kyle Lowry; and we had a trade lined up for Odom that would have gotten us a good first round draft pick. Not we, but my basketball folks. But Mitch Kupchak at the time panicked, and moved Odom to Dallas. So the piece wasn’t even there for us to play with at the time. So that was it — just about what was good for the then New Orleans Hornets."

New Orleans soon thereafter traded Paul to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Sounds like "basketball reasons" was Stern being greedy for an extra 1st round pick and more. Crazy that he cancelled a blockbuster trade that was already agreed upon simply because he thought they could/should get more. That should've been run by him before everything was finalized. Of course Kupchak dumped Odom, he knew they wanted him gone and they needed to get something out of him while he still had value... and this obviously led to his downfall & divorce etc.

It was definitely a weird situation, with the league owning a team and having a say in how it was run. Reading that, it makes me wonder if Stern was concerned about the league showing favouritism towards the Lakers if they allowed the trade to go through, and was therefore overly cautious about New Orleans getting fair compensation for Chris Paul.

That's the funny thing about the whole situation. There were accusations that the league had it out for the Lakers, which runs contrary to the usual conspiracies about how the league favours them and the other big market teams. Of course, as it stands, the fact that New Orleans won the lottery and selected Anthony Davis becomes the conspiracy theory instead, even though a team that stinks after trading away its best player and wins the lottery with the resulting high odds is hardly an unlikely scenario. Whether the league vetoed a trade or hadn't assumed ownership of New Orleans at the time, that was a likely scenario had Paul been traded one way or another.

Man, fuck Stern. Go be retired.

His reasoning was shit as well.

The Lakers trade would have netted them:

Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola and Goran Dragic.

The Clippers trade netted them:
Chris Kaman, Eric Gordon, Al Farouk Aminu and what turned out to be Austin Rivers.

At that time the above mentioned guys were way better than anything Eric Gordon or Rivers managed to produce.

Stern kept the league from a Chris Paul/Kobe tandem. With shitty reasoning. If it was Kwame Brown/Gasol lopsided I'd actually concede. This was straight up bullshit.

It was definitely a weird situation, with the league owning a team and having a say in how it was run. Reading that, it makes me wonder if Stern was concerned about the league showing favouritism towards the Lakers if they allowed the trade to go through, and was therefore overly cautious about New Orleans getting fair compensation for Chris Paul.

This is also why I hate Dan Gilbert so much.

Commissioner,

It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.

This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.

Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. That $21 million goes to non-taxpaying teams and to fund revenue sharing.

I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn't appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard. (They would also get a large trade exception that would help them improve their team and/or eventually trade for Howard.) When the Lakers got Pau Gasol (at the time considered an extremely lopsided trade) they took on tens of millions in additional salary and luxury tax and they gave up a number of prospects (one in Marc Gasol who may become a max-salary player).

I just don't see how we can allow this trade to happen.

I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.

When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?

Please advise...

Dan G.

Everyone failed here. Gilbert failed for his obtuse lack of critical thinking and for his blatant attempt to coerce Stern for his own benefit. The "vast majority of owners" Gilbert cited failed for going along with these shenanigans. And Stern failed for caving and allowing this to happen. Source.

Now he's out here gobbling up ex-all star players and ring chasers like a porn star with a dick in their mouth. But it's Lebron's dick so Dan gotta do what Dan gotta do.

Reminds me why I hate the Cavs so much.

personally i think they should just kick the lakers out of the league for basketball reasons

personally i think they should just kick the lakers out of the league for basketball reasons

personally i think they should just kick the lakers out of the league for basketball reasons

[ Image ]

This. All day every day

They should replace the shamrocks with palm trees

personally i think they should just kick the lakers out of the league for basketball reasons

[ Image ]

This. All day every day

They should replace the shamrocks with palm trees

And change the leprechaun to goggled Kurt Rambis.