While We’re Waiting…Buckeyes Fall To Kansas, Griffin III Wins Heisman
December 11, 2011Possible Suspension and League Review Reported In Response To Harrison Hit On McCoy
December 11, 2011Dan Gilbert wasn’t the only owner who supported David Stern’s veto on the deal between the Lakers, Rockets and Hornets previously designed to send Chris Paul to Los Angeles.
His email, seemingly a private one addressed to David Stern, was the only one that leaked publicly but he wasn’t alone in his position.
We can assume that a number of other owners shared similar sentiments, but we don’t have to assume that Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban was one of them. Cuban said as much on the record this past Friday.
Following reports that Thursday’s proposed trade was nixed by Commissioner David Stern, Cuban offered the following statement in support of Stern’s decision to block the trade in an interview with ESPN Dallas’ 103.3 FM:
“The message is we went through this lockout for a reason,” Cuban said. “Again, I’m not speaking for Stern. He’s not telling me his thought process. I’m just telling you my perspective, having gone through all this. There’s a reason that we went through this lockout, and one of the reasons is to give small-market teams the ability to keep their stars and the ability to compete.”
“Players will always have the right to choose what they want to do as a free agent, but the players agreed to rules that said, ‘You know what? Let’s give the home team, the incumbent team, an extra advantage.’ And that’s how the rules were designed. I think they’re going to work.”
Then on Saturday night Mark Cuban’s Mavericks traded for Lamar Odom, the 6th Man of the Year last season and an integral piece in the proposed Chris Paul trade. In return for Odom, Dallas sent a future first round draft pick and a portion of the Mavs’ recently acquired $8.9 million trade exception obtained through the sign and trade of Tyson Chandler to New York earlier that day to the Lakers.
The whole development is both hypocritical and kind of funny all at the same time. The ironic part about it is that this move for the Lakers also helps them in their efforts to now try to strike a deal for Dwight Howard. If they end up with Howard, instead of Chris Paul, it is difficult to argue that they’re not markedly better off than they would’ve been otherwise.
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Baron Davis Sidelined For Cavs Practice Saturday:
After being held out of the Cavaliers first practice on Friday, following a report the Cavs would use their Amnesty Clause on Davis Thursday, Baron sat out of practice again on Saturday too.
This from Mary Schmitt Boyer of the The Plain Dealer this morning:
Cavaliers guard Baron Davis received treatment on his sore back and sat out the second day of practice with the team on Saturday. His back, which also gave him trouble last season, tightened up in the first drill of training camp on Friday.
Davis has been rumored to be on his way out of Cleveland either via the amnesty clause or a buyout, although club officials have said they have not made a decision. He also could serve as a mentor to rookie point guard Kyrie Irving.
I like Baron Davis as much as the next guy, but you can’t do too much NBA mentoring from the training table. At least I don’t think you can. Tough to trade an aging vet with a huge contract who looks to be hurt all season too. The days of Davis in Cleveland appear to be numbered, I think, and I would guess that decision by club officials could be coming soon.
23 Comments
I give the NBA 5 more years until it’s behind the NHL. More and more people are becoming apathetic to it, now you can add New Orleans and Orlando to the cities that will no longer care and spend any money on the league.
The beauty is that the players think they are helping the league, but I guess that it what happens when you skip college and/or float through high school. Yes it’s good for the league to have great teams in major markets, but not that the expense of 25 other markets.
lol…that’s actually kind of funny
I don’t know if I’d call it hypocritical. That’s not really a blockbuster deal: as you said, he was the 6th Man of the Year. There’s a big difference between a trade involving CP3 and a trade involving the 6th Man of the Year. A little discretion should be used when analyzing a trade with somewhat big names — improving your team shouldn’t be seen as an automatic violation.
Can’t blame cuban… he needed to replace chandler… and its not like odem is a world beater. He can’t have THAT much left in the tank.
Matthew Grant Anson – to clarify, my suggestion of it being hypocritical is in the sense that maybe Cuban just wanted Lamar Odom the whole time, and he didn’t want him included in another trade (the CP3 deal from Thurs) that would ship him somewhere that wasn’t Dallas, possibly.
Can someone help me figure out when MLB and the NBA swapped roles?
MLB used be the laughing stock of pro leagues and the NBA was the class. Now it’s totally the opposite. I’m sure there was a “watershed moment” but I’m scratching my head as to what it might be. Maybe when Jordan retired from the Bulls the second time?
Any other ideas?
@Subadai
To me, the moment was when the Big 3 got together in Boston and won the title. Once you had Allen, Pierce and Garnett all on a team in a big market that won, other stars wanted to follow their footsteps and do the same. Now everyone wants to get a “Big 3” in a major city and win a ring with their buddies.
It would be ironic if LA somehow managed to land Howard instead of Paul. I wonder if Little Napoleon will stomp his feet and Tweet. Probably.
@ClevelandFan14…
That’s a good one. Really good. I thought of another one too….
When Kobe ran Shaq out of L.A.
i don’t see anything wrong at all with this trade. and i don’t think there is hypocrisy present either.
I just see an owner who recognized his team’s closing window of opportunity – he trades his late 1st round draft pick for a 35-year old bench player and rolls the dice for one more good year out of the guy.
a non-issue to me.
by the way, this all opens the door for Chris Paul to become a Knick next season. you can almost bank on it at this point. Melo, Amare, and Chandler have already committed to restructuring their contracts to make the money available.
Look no further than the 2003 draft. A lot of the players involved were in that draft, and 2004 and 2005 too. I wouldn’t say the NBA was ever the class of the leagues either. Since Jordan left they’ve been dying for a star to take his place. Only person who came close was Kobe. And now you have mess where 22 of the 30 teams lose money? That’s just terrible.
This is not hypocritical at all, and have no idea how one sees it like that if they look past the surface. The important parts of Cuban’s quote – “give small-market teams the ability to keep their stars” and “Let’s give the home team, the incumbent team, an extra advantage”. This is not the same as forcing a team to keep a guy around to pout on the bench all season.
Anyone else see Billups “warning?” Hows this any different then all of the “super stars” choosing their team? Also with the amnesty, what prevents the Knicks from offering a league min. salary? they still have to pay him his money, but the only part that “counts” is the vet minimum.
The NBA is a joke. The superstars of the league act like they offer something truly valuable to society…like no matter what, the league will always be successful. They act as if they operate in a vacuum.
I don’t think they understand (or maybe they don’t care) that their choice to create superteams has a real impact on fan interest throughout the country. Let me put it another way…
No real competition + $300 for a family to see a game live + other entertainment options exist = financial ruin for the association
Going to a pro sports contest is expensive, but the NBA is especially bad. If the NBA wants a 6 city league with a country club crowd, that’s their choice…just don’t come crying when you can’t half fill an arena.
It’s called contempt for your audience, and it will be the end of your league.
I agree that many fans are losing interest in this new version of the NBA. At least in America. However, I think many of the “global” fans (mainly in China) inject a lot of capital into the NBA and they don’t care at all about smaller market teams being irrelevant. In fact, I’ll bet the higher concentration of superstars increases interest globally, even if it is at the cost of the stateside fans that go to the games, buy concessions, pay for parking, patronize local businesses, etc.
I just wonder if the game will be as attractive to global crowds when they’re played in empty arenas? Will they be as interested in an 8 team league?
I agree Max. Sorry, Kevin, the league doesn’t actually care if half the arenas are half filled unless the top 5 or so teams are in town. The real money is in television, especially as it becomes easier to see these games across the world. The superstar teams do have an impact on fan interest – its up.
@ Steve
That’s just fine. Like I said, it’s their choice. They can run their league however they want. Fan interest may be up in the form of tv ratings, but paid attendance is down. That’s why many owners are losing money.
Building fan interest in China is great and all, and tv ratings are great, but ticket holders pay the bills. I followed the LeBron Cavs VERY close every season he was in Cleveland, and I attended zero games. I attended several Browns games and lots of Tribe games (including the playoffs) during that same period. What does that tell you?
I know I’m just one fan, but I have been priced out of watching a mediocre regular season game, and I’m about as middle class as they come these days. I’m not saying I’ll never watch. I’m just saying I’m quickly becoming less of a dedicated fan and more of a casual fan. I’m not bitter…just not that interested either.
How anyone can hate on Gilbert or the NBA for blocking the trade, absent being a fan of the Lakers, is beyond me.
Haters gonna hate.
I think it’s funny that even though it was done for the wrong reasons 4 out of 5 teams are going to end up better for Stern vetoing the trade.
1. Hornets – Bledsoe, Fariq, Twolves 2012 1st rounder + their own 1st rounder being worse (not getting 4 middling vets to get enough wins to kill their draft choice). That is how you rebuild a team.
2. Lakers – Dwight >> Paul (assuming they couldn’t get both)
3. Clippers – Paul + Griffin is going to be fun to watch.
4. Magic – obviously they seem to like the Lakers pieces more than the Nets they would have gotten.
5. – Rockets – sorry Houston. instead of getting Pau Gasol and Nene (with the cap room it would have given), you get to keep the same team that isn’t good enough to make the playoffs and doesn’t have a piece to build around. Ouch.
**this assumes that the Clips/Hornets deal goes through and Dwight ends up a Laker which look probably at this point.
Kevin, if not already then very soon, tv ratings will bring in much more money than ticket sales. And ticket sales were up slightly last year, and have stayed pretty stable around an all-time high. Paid attendance is, objectively, not down. All your anecdote tells me is that you don’t like going to NBA games as much as NFL or MLB games. Not really useful to this discussion in any way. You don’t like the way the NBA is headed. It’s understandable, but it’s also nowhere near as common an opinion as you think.
@Steve – the Lakers just signed the most lucrative TV deal ever and are going to be getting just under $200mil/year for their games. that is in addition to the NBA allotment (couldn’t find a good estimate)
gate receipts for the 2009/2010 season were just under $100mil
so, yes, TV is already driving revenue more than ticket sales. ticket sales are important still though because they fluctuate more than TV deals (which are generally in place and more static)
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/32/basketball-valuations-11_Los-Angeles-Lakers_320250.html
it’s ridiculous that the Lakers TV deal will basically double their revenue moving forward.
Cuban-you will never, ever have a storied franchise as the Lakers! Scumbag! Have some dignity?
Cuban is a liar. Cuban trashed his championship roster to make cap space this summer. He will steal Dwight Howard and Deron Williams from their teams with no compensation to them.
If Stern’s or Cuban’s lips are moving, they are are lying. Believe their actions, not their words. Cuban knew that Howard would have joined the Lakers in a sign and trade if Paul and Kobe were there. That is why Cuban spoke out publicly against the trade.
Stern is lying when he says he vetoed with no pressure from owners. The owners own the Hornets, not him. He does what the majority of owners tell him to do, or he gets fired by the majority of owners.
Gilbert is still pissed he fell for Lebron’s lie that he might make a “decision” to resign with the Cav’s. The decision to join his buddy Wade in Miami was made back in 2008. That is why Riley started trashing his roster for cap space then.
James would not do a sign and trade so Gilbert could get compensation. The only way Riley could get James was in free agency. So James lied to Gilbert and totally faked him out.
Michael Jordan has always been obsessed with stats. Scoring titles and especially his legacy. It would kill him if Kobe has more rings than he does. So he parroted the party line for Cuban.
It will come to pass, that Cuban will prove himself a liar when he steals Howard and Williams this summer.