Jonathan Avella's Blog

Late last night David Stern the commissioner of the NBA vetoed a three-way trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers. In my thirty one years of following sports the only other trade I ever saw vetoed was in my fantasy football league this year. To get Paul the Lakers were set to give up a four time all star in Pau Gasol and the reigning sixth man of the year in Lamar Odom. In addition to Odom New Orleans would receive three strong players from the Houston Rockets as well as a draft pick. Gasol would then end up in Houston. Shortly after the trade was accepted David Stern vetoed it. New Orleans now has two options left. They could try to work out another trade for Paul, but will be hard pressed to find a deal that compensates them as much as this one did. They can do nothing and Paul will play this year with them and then leave in the off-season as a free agent. In that scenario the Hornets would receive nothing. The league, which currently owns the Hornets, will say they had the Hornets best interest in mind. Based on those options I would disagree with that notion. The real reason Stern vetoed this trade is because the 29 other owners in the league, namely Dan Gilbert, forced him to. Gilbert, who is owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, wrote a very angry email to Commissioner Stern demanding something be done. Gilbert is also the putz who couldn’t keep Lebron James in his hometown and then proceeded to whine about his leaving like a bitter ex-girlfriend who James barely dated. Gilbert refers to the trade as a “travesty” and ended his email by saying, “When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals.” The Generals are most famous for being the chumps the Harlem Globetrotters always beat. If that’s what Gilbert thinks of his team every Cleveland Cavalier season ticket holder, if there are any, should give up their seats and receive a full refund. Gilbert is a moron of the most dangerous kind, a rich one. The scary part is Gilbert did not act alone. For this trade to be vetoed by Stern the majority of the league’s owners must have felt the same way Gilbert did. That is a lot of moronic millionaires in the same room. In reality, outside the idiotic world view of million dollar babies, the team this trade made the most sense to was the Hornets. They were set to receive four quality players plus a draft pick as opposed to nothing. The Rockets dished out three good players and a draft pick and all they were getting was Pau Gasol. The Lakers lost two staples of a team that won a championship just two seasons ago. Sure, Paul is a magnificent player but to lose two front line players like Gasol and Odom would have weakened them. Dan Gilbert believed that the Lakers were then going to land Dwight Howard because they still had other assets they could deal to Orlando. The fact that the Lakers were going to try that was true, but there was no guarantee Howard would become a Laker. It was a risky move for the Lakers to lose so much size when Howard was never a sure thing. Gilbert doesn’t get that though. To him Paul going to L.A. is like Lebron going to Miami. He thinks players should be forced to play where they are told like good little employees. For him the league is a chessboard for crybaby millionaires too weak to build a fine franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers. I hope Chris Paul has an MVP year and then goes and gets paid by the highest bidder of his choice. I guarantee that won’t be Cleveland. Dan Gilbert is way too busy flipping through old photo books of him and Lebron to care about improving his team.

Tags: Basketball, Chris Paul, Dabvid Stern, Dan Gilbert, Heat, Hornets, Houston, Lakers, Lamar Odom, Lebron James, Los Angeles, Miami, NBA, New orleans, Pau Gasol, Rockets, Washington Generals

This entry was posted on December 9, 2011 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.