My thoughts exactly.. "We want the small market teams to get better, yet we allow the trade to thru to LA" Cmon man.
The NBA does own the Hornets if I recall correctly. It may be a bad PR move for the league but at the end of thr day, this is a much better trade than what the lakers/rox offered.
ChrisMannixSI Chris Mannix DeAndre Jordan has to be ecstatic right now. New deal, now he has @CP3 to inflate his numbers.
This was an awesome trade. Martin + Scola are so bad at defense and have bad contracts (relating to a rebuilding team) which didn't really make sense for the Hornets. Aminu + Gordon + potential top 5 pick? Awesome.
It also had to do with the fact that the Lakers are over the Cap so the Lakers would actually pay ~$16 million if they kept Odom.
Stern is the best GM in the business. He's a negotiating powerhouse. At the end of the day, the Clippers' offer was better than ours.
Accomplished by basically swooping in and leveraging the Clippers out with a veto threat. the fact that it is a better trade just speaks to the ridiculousness of this whole thing. +mavericks getting Odom for free as a result? jeez.
Gordan, kaman and Aminu = 18 years younger than luis, martin and odom. + kaman = expiring contract and Twolves pick = top 10. Makes a lot more sense lol
Gordon is now going to be the featured guy there; he wilk have a chance to put up 25ppg and make a name for himself as a star. And if the minny pick ends up to be top 5 in a pretty loaded draft, there will be talent to entice Gordon to extend.
Clippers got screwed. CP3 will be gone in a couple years. They would have not done this without league collusion.
Way I see it, Billups ends up in Lakers, Clips get some size up front (they got 4 point guards right now lol). Both become great teams. BATTLE LA
Fair enough, but I still think you undervalue this haul overall. Eric Gordon is a STAR. He's only 22 years old (turning 23 later this month) and he was in the top 10 in the league in scoring last year. Plus, he's a far, far, far superior defender to Kevin Martin. Believe me, I really like Kevin Martin and am happy that he is a Rocket. But I would trade him in a milisecond straightup for Eric Gordon. Given Odom's frame of mind, the Hornets would be lucky if they could flip Odom for a prospect the caliber of Aminu (who most think will be very good, albeit not "Eric Gordon" good) and an expiring contract. Why take on the extra salary of an expiring contract when you can just get the prospect you want to begin with? Kaman and Scola could go either way, depending on what you're looking for. Obviously, Kaman is the weakest link in this trade package, yet he's still a former All-Star center and an expiring contract that can be easily moved. (Frankly, I'm hoping the Rockets make a play for him.) Purely on basketball ability, if I had average players at the other four positions, I would take Luis Scola over Chris Kaman; but (a) Kaman is a rare good center and (b) the Hornets wanted youth, so an expiring veteran contract may have more appeal to the league as "Hornets owner". The fact that you have to justify Scola (a main piece to the deal that fell through) being better than Kaman (the worst part of this package) tells you all you need to know about the relative value of the two offers.
