For most of Thursday, the Knicks made what looked like the biggest play of the day by reaching an agreement with Tyson Chandler.
Then the Lakers swept in and got their man, Chris Paul, causing the NBA to tilt on its axis, away from South Beach and back toward Hollywood.
Until the NBA stepped in and ordered the Hornets, the team it owns, to kill the deal.
You know what the NBA looks like now? A minor-league operation.
After the Hornets made a deal that was fair and square, David Stern decided his Hornets shouldn’t have sent Paul to the mighty Lakers.
As a commissioner, Stern is one of the best of all time. As a team owner, he’s no Jerry Buss.
What’s next, Stern tells the Hornets to send Paul to the Knicks for an inferior package of players? Hey, it’s possible, with Stern in charge.
Coming off a lockout when the league did not exactly solve one of its top problems — the fact that superstars such as Paul can still force their way out of their small-market teams to get to the big-market powerhouses — Stern felt he couldn’t OK Paul’s move to the Lakers. Even though the Hornets got a good haul for their franchise player.
At the Board of Governors meeting in New York, Stern was said to have taken tons of heat from irate owners that the league initially OK’d the deal. He should have told them to get lost. But Stern did very little in this new CBA to make major changes in the way his league does business, when it comes to keeping superstars in small and mid-level markets.
Where Stern goofed was when he and his inner circle decided last winter that it would be a great idea to save the Hornets. Oh, really? The NBA has no business saving teams and this is Exhibit A.
The NBA never should have saved George Shinn‘s hide in the first place. Shinn was a terrible owner and did not deserve to get a bailout. The Hornets were never too big to fail. They weren’t AIG. What they deserved, after so many years of Shinn’s incompetence, was a league directive ordering them to be contracted.
But Stern would rather shut down his beloved WNBA than kill off a poorly run NBA team that no one wants to buy or relocate.
Now, it’s embarrassing for the league because it has stepped in to kill a deal that wasn’t a sham, as the Lakers’ deal for Pau Gasol was, when the Grizzlies handed L.A. two titles by shipping Gasol to Kobe Bryant in 2008. The Hornets-Lakers deal wasn’t half as bad as the Celtics’ heist of Kevin Garnett, which was engineered by one former Celtic (then-Minnesota GM Kevin McHale) solely for the benefit of another (Boston GM Danny Ainge).
As bad as trading Paul might have been for the New Orleans franchise, the Hornets were still going to come away with Lamar Odom and an attractive package from the Rockets. With Gasol moving on to the Rockets, Houston was supposed to give up three players – Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic – and a No. 1 pick that used to belong to the Knicks. Not a bad haul, even when you’re losing your franchise player.
Now, Hornets GM Dell Demps has to go back to finding a new suitor for Paul, who was crushed by the news that he couldn’t join Bryant in L.A. Can’t blame him. He wanted to come to the Garden to play with Carmelo Anthony. But if you’ve got a choice between playing for the Lakers, who win titles on a consistent basis, and the Knicks, who haven’t won one since 1973, then it’s a pretty easy choice.
Paul is exactly who the Lakers needed, a superstar guard who can beat opponents off the dribble, turn the corner and lead the next generation of champions in the post-Kobe Bryant era.
After this season, he stood to sign a five-year, $100 million deal with the Lakers this summer. He had escaped the NBA’s worst franchise, with a great chance to win some rings. And there was a potential bonus.
After Paul, the next big sneaker to drop was supposed to be Dwight Howard going to L.A., following the same script written a generation ago by another star Orlando center named Shaquille O’Neal. It’s not very original, but it will work just fine for the Lakers.
Even after dealing two core players for Paul, the Lakers still had the means to get Howard. They’re ready to send Andrew Bynum to Orlando. That’s a deal that can still get done.
But Chris Paul can’t be a Laker, because David Stern said so.
Mr. Commissioner, your turnover.
