David Stern at brunch with a friend, discussing which teams he'll allow Dwight Howard to be traded to.
If you weren’t already convinced that NBA commissioner David Stern is a dictator, his recent actions should erase all existing doubt. After a lengthy lockout, I was just starting to get excited about the prospects of a new NBA season. A half-assed, 60-game season is better than none at all is what I told myself. Then the Chris Paul to the Lakers trade was proposed and subsequently vetoed by the heavy-handed Stern after other owners complained. In shooting down that trade, David Stern has damaged the credibility of the league. The NBA should sue Stern for defecation of character. No, not defamation; I typed it right the first time. David Stern just copped a squat and shat upon the entire NBA and all of their fans. To me, this is more damning than knowing a referee was getting paid to fix games.
I’m not a big fan of the Super Team strategy of assembling star-studded squads in an attempt to virtually buy a title. I am even less of a fan of hypocrisy. All of a sudden deciding “enough is enough” is pretty shady. The league’s owners just won concessions from the players on basketball-related revenue and salaries. Now, they want to control where guys are allowed to play. If I were Chris Paul, I’d be lawyering up right about now, preparing to hit the league with a lawsuit so large, they’d have to just give me the Hornets franchise in order to settle the thing.
Speaking of Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets, the fact that this man has played stellar basketball for a team that was run so incompetently that the league now owns it is reason enough to let him go to a contender. Think about if your boss’ boss’ boss got thrown out by the Board of Directors and the direction of your company looked bleak; would you still want to stick around? I’m guessing you’d do like any other normal person and start firing off resumes, A.S.A.P. Paul’s version of firing off resumes is asking to be traded, which in this case, is fully understandable. The crazy thing about the proposed Chris Paul trade is that the Hornets would have actually gotten some quality talent in the deal. Now, all that’s left is a bunch of pissed off players and a commissioner who does whatever the Hell he pleases.
People gave Bryant Gumbel a hard time when he compared David Stern to a slave overseer, so I won’t go there. I’ll pull the dictator card instead of the race one. David Stern went the Kim Jong Il route with his latest executive action. I’ll still watch NBA games this year, but I can’t lie, this has taken a lot of fun out of it, and that’s coming from someone who simply loves basketball, not a Lakers fan or a Chris Paul stan. As many great things as David Stern has done for the league, it might be time for the NBA to go in a different direction as far as leadership. I’m just saying…something has to give.
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That isnihgt solves the problem. Thanks!
after reading his sorry excuse for killing the deal, then going back to Gumbel’s comments – I tend to agree – Stern needs to go.
If that wont happen, they need to come up with a different set of folks to decide what happens in New Orleans. It shouldnt be Stern since he is incapable of separating whats best for NBA as a whole and what is best for that team/its players.
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Well said…i been calling him a dictator since he tried to force the NBA to use different basketballs (not sure if you remember that)…only a person who has never played the game would want to do something like that…that’s the problem now…too many business man who don’t really know the game, never played the game now running the game…sad