I do think it gets done. Lakes might have to do Bynum instead in my opinion.

No doubt this should have been back channeled and its awkward as hell.

By Yahoo! Sports Staff 24 minutes ago

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert called the New Orleans Hornets’ proposed trade of Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers a “travesty,” and urged NBA commissioner David Stern to put the deal to vote of the league’s 29 owners in an email obtained by Yahoo! Sports. Gilbert sent the email to Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver and a handful of Gilbert’s ownership peers on Thursday.
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The following is the email in its entirety:

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.

An NBA spokesman said owners “didn’t kill the deal,” instead citing “basketball reasons,” for why the league office blocked the trade.

Still, it's a ridiculous state of affairs when the nba owns a team- it should never happen as this case demonstrates.

Now LA is screwed and so are the Hornets, and so is Chris Paul. All because they still claim small market teams can't compete- news flash! Miami was not a big market team!

Backlash if the Knicks had done it would be less because of many years Dolan and Isiah were the leagues depository for bad contracts to be housed. That was a joke.

once upon a time Bowie Kuhn, baseball commish blocked a series of trades by the Oakland A's were were dumping players to the Yankees and Red Sox and below market prices. In all fairness Stern did the right thing but should have done this sooner to not embarrass all involved.

The backlash from OhDumb is precious. He is not reporting and all upset he is "not wanted". Great fodder for his whore-inlaw TV show where the pretty sluts of LA marry weak minded basketball players. If players are to conspire to move, then they have to be a bit tougher when they get traded.

Markji wrote:Lakers had a lopsided deal in getting CP3. We gave up far more in getting Melo. Personally I'm glad the deal was nixed.

IMO LA only has a good deal if they end up getting Howard. Without him, their entire frontcourt is an injury-prone Bynum. Let's not forget NOLA gets Scola, Odom, KMart, Dragic AND Picks for a player they now will leave in a year. solid haul. Houston gets the all-star they've been trying to get for years and can pair him up with a FA C/PF (for example Nene). I'd say the trade works for everyone.

The league has no business shooting it down.

Markji wrote:Lakers had a lopsided deal in getting CP3. We gave up far more in getting Melo. Personally I'm glad the deal was nixed.

Bonn1997 wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

Markji wrote:Lakers had a lopsided deal in getting CP3. We gave up far more in getting Melo. Personally I'm glad the deal was nixed.

We gave up quantity, the Lakers are giving up quality.

Exactly. We did not give up more value.