Keeping this seperate from trades etc and just on Stern.
Today was amateurish beyond belief. To allow this to brew all week and then step in when it's already done = incomprehensible. Unless he was asleep at his desk all week, he had to know this was happening. It's just unbelievable.
You now have a situation where one team basically has a star player who cannot be traded...who'll now walk for nothing. You now have a siutation where one of the most professional teams in the NBA, the Rockets, have basically been completely screwed. They were innocents in this...and could have got an AS big man + Nene with the extra cap room. They now have a completely ripped apart team with key locker room guys in Martin and Scola badly burnt.
Just an absolute disgrace and Stern has to be fired IMO. Forget LA and percieved bias, Houston got completely screwed today and NO will be a train wreck all season and then get nothing.
Fire Stern NOW.
QUOTE
“We were all told by the league he was a trade-able player, and now they’re saying that Dell doesn’t have the authority to make the trade?” said an NBA executive who had periodic talks with New Orleans throughout the process. “Now, they’re saying that Dell is an idiot, that he can’t do it his job. [Expletive] this whole thing. David’s drunk on power, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the players, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the hundreds of hours the teams put into make that deal.
“How do the Lakers explain this to Odom? How does Houston deal with the guys it just tried to trade? Scola and Martin are going to be pissed at them, and who knows how long that takes to get over? Explain to me how the league kills this Pau Gasol deal, but allows Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol?
“To me, this makes the league feel like it’s rigged, that Stern just does whatever Stern wants to do. He’s messed up the competitive balance of this league a lot worse by killing the deal, because you’ve completely destroyed the planning that New Orleans, Houston did and left them in shambles over this. I’ve never been so discouraged about this league, never so down.
“I mean, come on: Chris Paul is leaving New Orleans in 66 games. He’s gone. And what’s Dell Demps, and that franchise, going to have to show for it?”
Today was amateurish beyond belief. To allow this to brew all week and then step in when it's already done = incomprehensible. Unless he was asleep at his desk all week, he had to know this was happening. It's just unbelievable.
You now have a situation where one team basically has a star player who cannot be traded...who'll now walk for nothing. You now have a siutation where one of the most professional teams in the NBA, the Rockets, have basically been completely screwed. They were innocents in this...and could have got an AS big man + Nene with the extra cap room. They now have a completely ripped apart team with key locker room guys in Martin and Scola badly burnt.
Just an absolute disgrace and Stern has to be fired IMO. Forget LA and percieved bias, Houston got completely screwed today and NO will be a train wreck all season and then get nothing.
Fire Stern NOW.
QUOTE
“We were all told by the league he was a trade-able player, and now they’re saying that Dell doesn’t have the authority to make the trade?” said an NBA executive who had periodic talks with New Orleans throughout the process. “Now, they’re saying that Dell is an idiot, that he can’t do it his job. [Expletive] this whole thing. David’s drunk on power, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the players, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the hundreds of hours the teams put into make that deal.
“How do the Lakers explain this to Odom? How does Houston deal with the guys it just tried to trade? Scola and Martin are going to be pissed at them, and who knows how long that takes to get over? Explain to me how the league kills this Pau Gasol deal, but allows Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol?
“To me, this makes the league feel like it’s rigged, that Stern just does whatever Stern wants to do. He’s messed up the competitive balance of this league a lot worse by killing the deal, because you’ve completely destroyed the planning that New Orleans, Houston did and left them in shambles over this. I’ve never been so discouraged about this league, never so down.
“I mean, come on: Chris Paul is leaving New Orleans in 66 games. He’s gone. And what’s Dell Demps, and that franchise, going to have to show for it?”
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