I have plenty of respect for Coon. But he says Stern hadn't appointed someone to be in charge of basketball operations so that he could stay at arm's length. That's not true. He was talking to the press back then about how there was nothing to worry about because the management team was autonomous. He says Stern made the decision as owner. That's not true either. Stern was an employee of the 29 owners of the Hornets and had no ownership stake himself. If he was acting on behalf of the real owners, it's because the majority of those owners had a competitive self-interest in blocking the Lakers from getting Chris Paul. So plenty of respect for Larry Coon -- I certainly pay attention when he has something to say about the CBA -- but I'm not going to defer to his authority on matters where I can clearly see he's wrong.
Related, with the benefit of hindsight, which deal was better for the Hornets? Dragic is really the only piece that looks better in hindsight. First deal: Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic, the Knicks 2012 1st rounder (16th, used on Royce White) Second deal: Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu, Minn's 2012 1st rounder (10th, used to pick Austin Rivers), 2 2015 second round picks (#47, traded to Philly; and #56, used to pick Branden Dawson) If the Clippers deal is better, it's not by very much.
hornets were getting Dragic, Martin and Scola which wouldn't have made them bad enough or good enough to be anything. It was a good move for everyone except Lakers, but **** them anyway. We would have Lowry, Gasol and Nene, pretty good, but not great, especially considering we got Harden eventually with Lamb, Lowry and Martin.
But then, in hindsight, the Clips deal makes them bad enough to tank for AD. I'm not gonna say the lottery was rigged but if ever there was a time for the league to rig the lottery that would be it.
I think everyone would agree that it worked out well for all parties involved. The Clippers have been a perennial playoff team since Paul joined, the Rockets took a huge side step away from the mediocrity treadmill by not having that trade go through, and the Pelicans ended up with Anthony Davis.
I don't think you get to count Anthony Davis as a benefit of the Clippers deal. They could have easily flipped Martin and Scola for youth and been equally bad. Comparing the assets, what made the Clippers deal supposedly a better deal mostly evaporated. Aminu never developed, Gordon was injured half the time, and the promising lotto pick was wasted on Austin Rivers. And only Rivers brought back any compensation in trade when they all walked out the door. At least with the first deal, they'd probably do no worse than Rivers 6 places back in the draft and they'd have something in Dragic.
At the time the deal for EJ was better than whatever they were getting. EJ >>> Dragic at the time. Those first 3 seasons with the Clippers EJ averaged 18 points per game and wasn't even 23 yet. Had he stayed healthy he likely would be a perennial 23+ ppg guy. It sucks for what could have been for EJ. Ended up having an injury riddled career and also played for an incompetent franchise. Imagine that instead of playing only 6 games in his inaugural season with the Hornets EJ instead played a full 82 games and averaged 37 minutes as the face of a team that knew how to take care of its players? Giving a 23 year old kid the keys to the franchise and become the #1 option. Would have done wonders for EJ honestly. Don't you ever watch EJ play today with Houston, do some of the things he does and wonder, "damn, how good would he have been had he stayed healthy?" Dragic on the other hand was already 24 going to be 25 and barely averaged 17 minutes and 9 points a game. Far too little a sample size to see how good he could be.
Of course you do. The ability to tank is what allows you to get a Anthony Davis, or at least gives you better odds. Fans here have wished Les would let us tank for years. Doubt it. We couldn't and had to amnesty Scola. At the time the Clipper pieces were young players with upside and what was then projected to be a high lotto pick. Gordon was a young player who looked like he would get the max and the pick they received was an unprotected one from what was expected to be a bad team. Those are the type of assets a rebuilding team wants.
On AD: winning is hard, losing is easy. It's not a credit to the organization or the trade that they lost a lot. People are saying the Clippers trade was better because the pieces they got back resulted in more losing. That's bizarro logic. Point granted on Scola, but if the team wanted to tank for the #1 pick, they'd be able to do it despite Scola and Martin. Not saying it'd be smart to do so, I just don't think it's fair for the Clippers trade to take credit for Davis. On the young Clippers pieces: Sure, that's why everyone thought it was a better deal at the time. It really was a better deal at the time. A high pick, a young explosive player drafted 7th, and another young guy drafted 8th with perhaps some potential. That was at the time. In retrospect, it was a bunch of crap and the team wasn't any better off than they would have been with the Lakers/Rockets offer. Nixing the deal was the right call -- a team in the Hornets' position needed to get young promising guys with the potential to be special -- even if Stern was not the appropriate guy to do it, but this is another example of trades that look one way in real-time look quite different in retrospect. In retrospect, the Hornets gave up Chris Paul for essentially no benefit.
The more post I read, the more I realize that Stern wanted this smoke screen the whole time. Everyone preoccupied with the vetoed trade while he orchanstrates #1 pick too none other than New Orleans. All smoke and mirrors.
Stern is right, there's nothing wrong with awful corruption, what is really wrong is calling people out for awful corruption.
Sure it is. You credit the team for deciding to rebuild as opposed to staying in the land of the mediocre (basically us before we stole Harden). The organization went with the strategy of rebuilding with youth and through the draft. That leads to high draft picks (Davis). No, multiple posters have detailed how getting what folks thought was a young max player (Gordon) and an unprotected lotto pick > the declined trade package. The decision to blow it up and rebuild was better than being the New Orleans version of us, a team with limited ways to improve. Blowing it up allows you to try to rebuild via the draft by being bad enough to land a top pick. It's a common strategy. Every Rockets fan should be familiar with it due to what Presti has done since he left. You aren't going to lose as many games with those guys on the Roster. Exactly. That's how you value a trade, based on how things looked when you acquired them. For example, Lawson had a meltdown here but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good trade for us at the time. It just didn't work out.
Stern saved Morey's ass and he's right. Morey threw his toys even though it would've ended his tenure as Rockets GM.
