Demps is there to do things like resign carl landry, or get crappy players for the training camp.....when it comes to chris paul, the owner should be involved. i hate how rockets got kind of screwed, and it does seem shady...but i dont see anything wrong with what david stern said or did
Good post. BTW - - is Stern telling the truth and thus Feigan's credibility absolutely zero based on his heckuva impressive piece? (Kudos JF!) BTW II - - I do agree the Clips deal was better after they knew what the threshold was. To paraphrase Vlade er, I mean Mr Smirnoff, 'Whatta League!'
Stern didn't do anything wrong by vetoing the trade, but if he wanted to be involved in the trade he should have done so earlier and established that with Demps, the Rockets, and the Lakers.
He's in the top half of radio guys for sure; a little too much of his personal life for my tastes. His football talk is much better than his hoops talk, in general. I can listen to him except when he slobbers all over Lerbon and Mark Sanchez. He has a really weird thing for each of those guys.
The sad fact is that Cowherd is not equipped to go toe to toe with David Stern. Aside from his intelligence, Stern holds all the cards. I don't understand why people are so shocked when a Stern interview fails to pin the guy down on an issue. He's David freakin Stern. Get over it, b****es.
The bottom line is Stern deceived teams into thinking they were dealing with the top hat when they were dealing with Demps. He used Demps as a front-man to elicit the best deal, then as owner he nixed it. He didn't negotiate in good faith. It would be no different than if Morey was told by Les that he had full autonomy and Les wasn't apart of trade negotiations until the deal is signed and done, then Les were to step in and veto it. Les would be throwing crap all over Morey and all over the other GMs/owners who had been negotiating in good faith with Morey. Stern crapped on us and the Lakers. It's just that simple. And he made it much more difficult for Demps to do any trades because of credibility. GMs aren't going to want to deal with Demps. The fortunate thing for New Orleans is they probably don't have any more deals to be made unless it is trading away salary for expiring contracts to free up cap space for the future owner. The bottom line is Stern lied and used Demps to craft the deal. No other owner in the NBA could get away with crapping out on deals. It would kill their future trade dealings in the league as word would get around that they were not men of their word. NO OTHER OWNER COULD RUN THEIR FRANCHISE THAT WAY! They would run it straight into the ground! If I were Morey and Les, I think I'd negotiate a real simple deal with Demps for Okafor, offer New Orleans Thabeet and one of our youngsters for Okafor, tell Demps that Les had approved it, get Demps to get Stern's approval on the deal as owner, let all the paperwork be drawn up, then hold up the deal for Les to approve it. And let Les nix it very publicly after having already given verbal approval and getting the trade smeared all over ESPN, etc. Play the game right down at the trade deadline, get other teams involved, let the bidding go sky high until we win the bidding contest at the 11th hour and 59th minute, then Les nixes it just in time for New Orleans not to be able to execute any other deal to move Okafor off the books.
What the **** does he know about what's best for any team? His job isn't managing talent. You don't doubt they were acting in the Hornets best interest which is fine... but its also funny, because you have the same credentials as Stern when it comes to making that judgement.
ha this is true, there are so many GMs who have talked about having a short lease. Their job is to take hte fall, be it the owners or someone else's decision. The stern black lash is just pure ignorance and just the newest 'thing to do' this year. The NBA would be lightyears behind without stern. I don't think people understand how a business is run and how crucial the infrastructure is to best showcase the product(the players)
I understand that owners get veto power, but this is a very unique situation. The NBA is a temporary owner. And they are an owner with huge conflicts of interests in the case of this trade so they were obviously behaving in a way that benefited them. They wanted a young, upside group with reasonable salaries to make the team attractive to sell first and foremost. The actual team composition was secondary. There was obvious miscommunication seeing as how the deal was agreed upon before Demps had a clue that it would be vetoed. The NBA didn't make it clear that they were calling the shots...nor should they have been since they have an interest in the entire league as opposed to just the Hornets.
I imagine David Stern STILL believes in his heart of hearts that nothing he did was wrong. He is a 100% results-oriented personality; trying to explain ethics to him would be like talking to a brick wall. He probably doesn't understand the repercussions of ignoring principles and cutting corners to achieve his ends. In his mind, any setbacks that occur as collateral damage from such dirty dealings could just be handled with more corner cutting and under the table bargaining. Part of me wants David Stern out as soon as possible so that the NBA can begin picking back up the shattered pieces of credibility that he has left behind in his pandemonium of an administration. The other part of me wants to see Stern stay on board long enough to sink with the ship, so that finally someone, ANYONE (are you there God?) can finally step up to Stern's face and say, "See where your life philosophy has left you, Fool?"
There is nothing wrong with an owner having the final say, having veto power. Stern is right, every team that is worth a crap operates this way. What is wrong is when he (Stern) acting in the role of owner lets the GM go through all the exercises of putting a deal together, while constantly REASSURING the GM and the other teams in the deal that the deal is good, without objecting in any way, until the trade is approved by all parties and sent to the league to be ratified, and THEN VETOING THE TRADE!!!! What hasn't been uncovered in these interviews with Stern is what he knew about the trade and how Demps was communicating with him about the deal while it was being negotiated. What also hasn't been discussed and asked of Stern directly is what operating instructions did he have with Demps, what had he instructed Demps to do, did he tell Demps to negotiate without informing him as the owner because he wasn't going to be involved in the trade, or did he tell Demps to check off with him as the owner to keep him abreast of the trade negotiations. Nobody is asking those questions of Stern directly and he isn't having to answer it. But he does have a towel gagged in Demps' mouth apparently. What does that tell you? HE SHOULD HAVE VETOED THE DEAL EARLY ON INSTEAD OF LETTING HIS OWN GM AND OTHER TEAM's GMS AND OWNERS SPEND SO MUCH TIME TRYING TO MAKE A DEAL WORK WHILE BEING UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE DEAL WAS ACCEPTABLE!!! New Orleans got shut down by both Golden State and the Clippers because Paul wasn't willing to sign there long term. New Orleans finally "settled" for the Clippers deal after Paul was convinced to give them another year and the Stern relented on getting both picks and Gordon in the deal. Stern, acting as owner of the Hornets, had MANY MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO HALT THE PROCEEDINGS AND STATE THAT HE DIDN'T WANT LONG TERM CONTRACTS BUT EXPIRING CONTRACTS AND YOUNG TALENT/PICKS!!!! Don't tell me DEMPS wasn't communicating with him what was happening. And don't tell me that Morey and Kupchap weren't making sure every step of the way that the trade would be acceptable! If Demps was really that incompetent then he should be fired! He is not and he wasn't fired, rather he and Morey had to be talked out of not resigning! In fact, it was shocking to me that we were actually negotiating with New Orleans about seasoned vets on long term deals. I couldn't believe they would actually do that when they were trying to sell the team!!! So, SHOULDN"T DEMPS HAVE KNOWN THAT WAS THE PARAMETERS ALSO?!?!? Absolutely!!! No NBA OWNER LEAVES THEIR GM IN THE DARK LIKE THAT!!! But Demps didn't know. He was simply negotiating the best possible trade that gave him the most possible assets to work with. I would still say today that Demps could've flipped both Martin and Scola and Odom for more young talent and picks than he got from the Clippers!!!! Stern did not negotiate in good faith! He used the negotiations as leverage to cut another deal with another team, blatently screwing over two other teams in the process. He can't get around it. He can't explain it away. HE DID NOT NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH WITH HIS OWN GM AND WITH THE OTHER TEAM'S FRONT OFFICES! He pulled a big stunt. And he overstepped his bounds in doing so and magnified the conflict of interest that exists between him and the Hornets. Stern is supposed to be the commissioner, not a team owner, not a team GM. It's conflict of interest, and Stern ABUSED THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST!
lol, you play with stern you play with fire. just deal with it. he's david stern and you're not. oh yeah, b****es.
No surprise Stern held his own against Cowherd. He even turned the tables on Cowherd when discussing the viability of the Hornets and Dan Gilbert's email Stern argued facts, Cowhered argued conjecture. You gotta bring your 'A' game against Stern. Maybe Stern will get busted someday...
No sense in arguing. You could corner him with questions he wouldn't be willing to answer. I can't believe the stupidity of some reporters that have a gift horse handed to them. Just ask him the questions. He's the acting owner of the Hornets! Ask him probing questions about the trade negotiations and watch him clam up.
At what cost? The NBA already had serious integrity issues... this is the worst yet. Stern represents the ENTIRE NBA... not just the Hornets. The league should not "own" one of the teams, and if they are going to, there should be serious fire wall between the league and the GM. Instead Stern REPEATEDLY steps in and over rules the GM of the Hornets, and voids trades. He even goes so far as to say which players the Clippers are to give him in trade... and amazingly enough, he gets those players. The long term damage to the NBA is not small.
