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"He said that David was briefed and that it was a done deal," one of the individuals with knowledge of the talks said. "He (Demps) said multiple times that he briefed both of his local officials, (Hornets president) Hugh Webber and (Hornets chairman) Jac Sperling, and they and Dell at regular intervals were updating (NBA vice presidents) Stu Jackson and Joel Litvin and that they told David himself throughout the day. Also, Hugh and Jac, who were updating the league office, understood it to be a deal

http://www.iamagm.com/news/2011/12/17/houston.chronicle.has.sources.saying.david.stern.flatout.lied.about.chris.paul.trade?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

i'm sure it would be a horrible to be a rockets fan right now (much worse for the lakers though, but isn't it about time the lakers have a tough situation to deal with? they've been gifted at least one superstar per decade since the 60s).

BUT, bill simmons made a good point in one of his columns -

why don't the rockets just make the same offer they made to New Orleans directly to the Lakers for Gasol?

gives the Rockets Gasol and gives the Lakers a fresh infusion of talent (Kevin Martin, Scola, etc). Gasol seems miserable anyway.

otherwise, time to move on.

the difference is the hornets got a package of two very promising young players and one very good draft pick. as opposed to three NBA players who were already highly paid and on the downside of their career.

new orleans goal shouldn't have been to try to make the playoffs, but to start a rebuild. that's what the second trade brought them. does it make them easier to sell with young guys and a lower payroll? yes. but that's an important aspect to the team.

to my mind this isn't anywhere near as bad as when stern aided the destruction of basketball in seattle. that was much worse.

CrushAlot wrote:

crzymdups wrote:but, chris paul WENT to a big market team. to the same exact market.

the difference is the hornets got a package of two very promising young players and one very good draft pick. as opposed to three NBA players who were already highly paid and on the downside of their career.

new orleans goal shouldn't have been to try to make the playoffs, but to start a rebuild. that's what the second trade brought them. does it make them easier to sell with young guys and a lower payroll? yes. but that's an important aspect to the team.

to my mind this isn't anywhere near as bad as when stern aided the destruction of basketball in seattle. that was much worse.

The Clippers are in a big market but they have been a joke for a long time. Stern is not a fan of Donald Sterling and for years the joke was that someone needed to wake Eljin Baylor up to make his selection in the draft. The Nets are a big market team and have had a ton of cap space the past few years. The only guy they have gotten has been Deron and that was trading for him without an extension. I think it is hard to spin what Stern did. I also think most teams do not want to stsrt a rebuild especially in smaller markets. Ticket sales go down as well as fan interest. There wasn't enough wrong with that original deal to veto it especially when reports are coming out now that Stern was fine with it pre-Gilbert email.

Stern vetoed it before the email was time-stamped, unless they doctored the time-stamp.

That Lakers/Rockets deal would have put the Hornets in purgatory - not good enough to compete for a championship, not bad enough to get a number 1 pick. The only way to rebuild and compete, ESPECIALLY for a small-market team is to load up on draft picks and hope to get lucky in the draft.

This year the draft is LOADED and the Hornets will have two likely lotto picks - their own and Minnesota's. that's 2 shots at a top three pick that could become another Chris Paul type franchise player. AND they have Eric Gordon who is one of the best young guards in the league. And Aminu is supposed to be a good prospect. AND they have some decent foundation vets in Ariza, Emeka, Kaman, Jack, etc.

It was a good trade. The Rockets/Lakers trade was a bad move. No smart front office would take the Rockets/Lakers offer over the Clippers one. If Stern bailed out Demps, so be it. He was also perserving the value of one of his 30 franchises.

Stern did the right thing but the manner was lousy.

He got intense pressure from owners and it is them who own the hornets.

If there was any mistake it was the timing of the veto and letting the trade get to far down the road.

OhDumb Kardashian media whore machine grabbed it and used it to move a Kardashian to a new market and with them moving, and putting a store in Dallas they seemed to have capitalized on it very nice.

Kobe is grumpy cuz ohdumb was moved for cap space but we now know the real reason why. His divorce.

HIs contract is a killer, 84 million over THREE years!

NBA is full of empty words. Players, owners and commish move their mouths and words come out but they are always not truthful. Tell the fans what they want to hear.