Let’s get something clear. David Stern did not “give” Chris Paul to the Clippers, David Stern representing the NBA as acting owners of the New Orleans Hornets vetoed a horrible trade that would have sent Paul to the Lakers for a pile of hot garbage and also would have ended up with the Hornets taking on more salary. That was simply unacceptable and the same exact thing every single other owner in the NBA would have done. The Clippers got Paul by making a much more reasonable offer.
People will deff remember this. Jimmy the Greek and Al Campanaris can attest to that. They probably already have a deal to make a ESPN 30 for 30 over this.
I don’t much care about it anymore, but this is an absurd statement. Dragic, Kevin Martin and Scola are garbage?
At the risk of provoking a tangent, this is completely untrue.
Goran Dragic, who would have gone to New Orleans in the vetoed deal with the Lakers and Rockets, has produced at a significantly higher level than any of the fringe players the Pelicans got in the deal with the Clippers. Even prior to this year, Dragic gave his teams production equivalent to that of Eric Gordon (the injury-prone centerpiece of the Clippers deal that actually went through) for literally half the salary (and, of course, became an actual useful piece in the last season).
Of course, no one could have known that Dragic would turn out that well or that Gordon would turn out that poorly, but a trade return that included Dragic absolutely cannot be characterized as a “pile of hot garbage…” and the fact that the best player involved in the deal turned out to be Dragic is the reason you don’t veto a deal like that in the first place.
ETA: Jimmy Chitwood’s post reminded me- I had forgotten that Kevin Martin, plus Houston’s first rounder, had been included in the vetoed deal. Martin + that 1st rounder were most of the return that got James Harden a year later. Not to say that New Orleans could have or would have swung the same deal with Oklahoma City… but it definitely speaks to the amount of value in the package that was vetoed, particularly in contrast with what the Pelicans actually got back (which is much, much closer to a hot pile of garbage than what they would have gotten).
Goran Dragic has been wonderful, but he wasn’t back then and there was very little expectation for him to be this good. And it also included Pau Gasol’s huge contract and Lamar Odom. Just because Dragic had a breakout year and Houston got an incredible deal on Harden does not make that a good trade. The biggest problem was all the salary that New Orleans was taking on, that was a team with NO owner, the other owners rightfully complained that they would be paying money to hand LA a superstar.
Gasol was going to the Rockets, but the fact that you thought they were also getting him makes it even crazier, from my perspective.
Of course the fact that Dragic turned out to be the best asset available to New Orleans makes it a good deal! That’s the definition of a good deal!!
I remember when the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol. I remember Bill Simmons, in particular, ripping Chris Wallace every which way for weeks - for months - hell, for years - in every column he wrote about the NBA. Because Marc Gasol turned out to be wonderful, but he wasn’t back then and there was very little expectation for him to be this good. But as it turned out, that deal is the primary reason the Grizzlies have been consistently successful in the last half-decade. As it turned out, that was a good deal for the Grizzlies.
In the same way, the Dragic deal would have been a much better deal for the Pelicans than the Gordon deal turned out to be. A lot of observers didn’t recognize that at the time. But maybe Dell Demps did (or maybe he didn’t, of course). Maybe he saw something in Dragic, or recognized that Kevin Martin had value to other teams. He ought to have been given the chance.
And Pau Gasol went to Houston; his huge contract would have been managed by the Rockets. Had New Orleans gotten Gasol and Dragic AND Martin for Chris Paul, they’d have been in the playoffs every year since.
If this is going to become a thread about basketball, I’m going to be severely disappointed.
Exposing some evil hiding in plain sight is always a good thing.
The leak of the tapes shows us the depth of Sterling’s depravity and spurs the NBA to move him out as owner. It brings to the forefront an issue long simmering so that people can actually deal with it and improve things. Maybe the NBA donates money to the NAACP instead. Maybe because of this, more NBA owners promote minority neighborhood reach out programs. Maybe the collective disgust of the league sends a social ripple into the public showing how much this kind of behavior is detested, and deters others from acting on their hidden prejudices or scares them into not having them at all. Why are you only looking at the possible bad that comes from this? Why are you trying to deflect the attention to the messenger who is so clearly not the story here?
It might have turned out to be a good deal in the long term but the NBA was right to reject it at the time.
That’s just not true. The players the Hornets were getting from the Lakers were much better and more valuable assets than the ones they ended up with.
And - and I’ll let it go after this out of respect for the topic, sorry sorry - Luis Scola was damn near a 20/10 per 36 minutes player as a starter at the time of the trade. The Pacers traded a first rounder, Gerald Green and a Plumlee for an older version of Scola just this past year.
The NAACP should be hugely embarrassed over this. How corrupt is this organization to give an award to a previously well known racist.
nm
Why should the NAACP be embarrassed? It’s not their burden to ascertain the true feelings of every contributor. Sterling had been sued for discriminatory housing policies and the NAACP accepted the donations in good faith that he meant to be turning a new lead. Isn’t that what we are all supposed to do?
The NAACP has several functions, but none of them have to do with certifying that someone is or is not truly not a racist. Now that Sterling has with his own mouth condemned himself, they’re returning the money and revoking their award. That’s good enough for me.
Hey, Donald Trump surprisingly signs on to the “bitch set him up” explanation – http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/donald_trump_donald_sterling_was_set_up_by_his_very_very_bad_girlfriend_from_hell/
They should be embarrassed for giving lifetime achievement award(s!) to a guy who just a couple of years ago paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits over discrimination against minorities and who is on record saying horrible things about people of color. The first award came right before he settled, so the case was probably in the news at the time. It’s one thing to take money from a guy - they’re a charity, so that’s fine even though such donations are often made for cynical reasons - but it’s another thing to give him a major award. Apparently you can buy a lifetime achievement award from this NAACP chapter for cost of some basketball tickets and an “insignificant” amount of money (that’s how they described his donations). That doesn’t reflect too well on them, does it?
It’s cool that we’re about 50/50 on whether it’s the NAACP and/or the girlfriend or the guy who disgorged the actual racist rant who we want to be ashamed of themselves.
Yeah. Racists have a hard enough time without everyone else embarrassing themselves.
So yeah, banned for life and the maximum 2.5 mill fine. Works for me.
And the league is going to try, and hopefully succeed, in forcing a sale of the team.