These waters are way murky as evidenced by the threat of a lawsuit. If the trade is legal under the league rules, and approved by the acting general manager who can be argued to be upholding his fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the New Orleans Hornets, and the Commissioner acts only to limit his perceived advantage to the Lakers where it can be argued that there is none, then his actions might be construed as capricious and damaging to the legal earning power of Mr. Paul. There is a statement from the Commissioner's office some pages back that states that decisions about the Hornets are ultimately his though; but I just don't see how he couldn't remove himself from competitive decisions without risking exactly the appearance of this kind of collusion. He would have to come right out and say his decision was to maintain the sale-ability of the team by keeping the salaries to a minimum, even to the point of losing Chris Paul to free agency.
From Jonathan Feigen's article in the Chronicle today: http://blog.chron.com/nba/2011/12/t...rn-steps-in-stabs-rockets-others-in-the-back/
I already said that this situation is unique because of the ownership situation and creates possibilities for a lawsuit. My point to the poster was that under normal circumstances a player cannot sue to get traded or because he wasn't traded or because he was traded regardless of what it means to him in endorsement dollars.
There's no conflict of interest as long as the man hired to run the Hornets is allowed to do so with out the envolvment of the league. Once the league gets involved and starts dictating who the Hornets can trade a player to, even to the detriment of the team, then it becomes a serious conflict of interest. No longer is the NBA about fair competition where all teams play with in the same set of rules and the savviest or even the luckiest teams win. It is now a choreographed drama where the Commisioner David Stern gets to decide who gets the good players and who gets the championship, ala WWF or WCF. In this case there is a clear and definable conflict of interest created by David Stern.
That's fine. It's just my opinion that the case will have no chance in court. "Im under contract and suing this league owned team for not trading me to a specific team". Um, ok....good luck with that.
It's more than about trading to a curtain team. The NAB can't trade him to any team now because it would send a message that Stern is not only a hypocrite but maybe even colluded with owners to deny the Lakers from getting a player they desired. A BIG CAN O' WORMS.
The problem is that it's not just the fact that the "owner" of the Hornets nixed a trade. He didn't magically just hear about this trade and say no. Stern was made aware of the trade for weeks and was kept updated about it, he knew the players involved in the trade and said nothing against it. Once the deal was in place and ready to go to get approval from the NBA front office, Stern pull the rug out from everyone. It's obvious it wasn't a basketball decision.
It's not on Dell Demps or New Orleans at all. How can he be expected to tell HOU/LA who he can trade when Stern and the owners have made it clear that he holds no power?
Originally Posted by MadMax You guys need to stop with the conflict of interest stuff. I realize it sounds very legalize....but EVERY DEAL the Hornets make with ANY OTHER NBA TEAM involves a conflict of interest. There's no way around it. That's why they should have, and I thought they did, appoint an independent caretaker. And it is why Stern's overuling the deal looks like league collusion. Was his reason for vetoing the trade: 1. competative balance (Laker dynasty...they don't look better) or 2. Hornet franchise sale-ability?
There's no apparent authority..the very owners who gave the impression of apparent authority are the very owners who participate in these trades. Again, every move the Hornets make, by necessity, involves a conflict of interest so long as the league owns the team. I guess it just doesn't surprise me that, just like anywhere else, ownership ultimately has a say in who gets moved where and for how much.
