The Lakers play New Orleans tonight, the third game of their four game road trip.
David Stern is not here. He is absent from the scene of the crime. Anthony Davis will have to play without him. Monty Williams will still draw things up. Tyreke Evans, after driving to the rim, won’t see Stern with his arms folded. Ryan Anderson’s three point shots will have to make another lawyer applaud.
And yet, David Stern is here in New Orleans. He is here every game. He is the one man responsible for the Pelicans being the Pelicans. He rescued the franchise off of life support and made this version of the Pelicans truly possible even if he had to commit a crime to do it. Because, the snatching of Chris Paul away from the Lakers made the Pelicans dream come true.
Oct 31, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) guards Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) in the second half of the game at Staples Center. Clippers won 118-111. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Chris Paul should be a Laker. But he is not. David Stern voided the trade, and then, in a moment of powerful arrogance, acted as if the trade never happened in the first place. Consequently, Stern reduced the Lakers to a shell of themselves. As they fell deeper and deeper, the Pelicans grew bolder and wider. Whether it was by design or whether it was by accident, the bottom line remains the bottom line. The Lakers have never recovered from David Stern’s thievery which thrust the Lakers into NBA hell.
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How bad has it been since the Chris Paul trade was voided? The Lakers have gone through four head coaches who often appear dazed and confused. They have played 11 point guards: Steve Blake, Jordan Clarkson, Chris Duhon, Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher, Jeremy Lin, Kendall Marshall, Darius Morris, Ronnie Price, Steve Nash, Ramon Sessions.
Combine that mediocrity with lost games due to freakish injuries and you see why the Lakers have suffered the way they have.
Three years have come and gone since David Stern rejected the Chris Paul trade and drove a stake through the Lakers heart. The deal would have given the Lakers the best point guard since Magic Johnson. It would have reassured a continuing pipeline of NBA talent. Paul would have been the needed buffer between Kobe Bryant’s seriousness and Dwight Howard’s casualness. Paul is a friend to both and more importantly, a peacemaker. Furthermore, Chris Paul, at age 26, would have allowed the last phase of Kobe’s career to be graceful, one in which he was not torturing himself every single night to carry a team. It would be aging- the Tim Duncan way.
But, David Stern’s power lust created a scenario in which Stern re-invented himself. He was not the Commissioner of the NBA anymore but a prejudicial owner in the likeness of a Dan Gilbert.
These are the facts: The Hornets were up for sale after their despicable owner George Shinn had the franchise taken from him. The NBA were the new owners. To entice a bidder, revenues had to be low. Buyers had to envision capital gains in a still struggling economy. So, Stern’s trading of Chris Paul for parts instead of for talent was not for “basketball reasons” as he has often said. That was a nice phrase but an empty one.
Stern did what he did so he (the NBA) could make a profit. Stern engineered a roster of mediocre contracts (sort of like the Lakers have now) to make the team attractive to billionaires.
Jan 7, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) passes the ball away from Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) during the game at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
The deal that would have brought the veteran contracts of Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and Luis Scola to New Orleans was permanently shelved by Stern. In its place were the rookie deals of Eric Gordon and Al-Faruoq Aminu. Chris Kaman in the last year of his deal was sent to New Orleans as well as draft picks.
It worked. Within six months, the Hornets were sold for $338 million dollars to Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints (NFL). The Hornets got the #1 pick in the Draft Lottery, handing them Anthony Davis, even though they were lottery underdogs. They only had a 13% chance to finish first but when David Stern is on your side…
If it sounds like a conspiracy it was worse than that. A conspiracy is something imagined with only small truths pointing to damage. For the Lakers, the damage was real. Lamar Odom was never the same. He couldn’t pretend the trade that was voided was a trade that never happened. Unable to recover from the rejection, he wanted out and the Lakers accommodated him. Lamar played in Dallas but his heart was not in it because his heart was broken.
Pau Gasol returned to the team in the professional way he does just about everything. But the trade was a sobering lesson. It was one small cut in a series of cuts he would sustain over the next few years upon hearing his name in trade rumors over and over again. He forgave but he didn’t forget and in the end he didn’t really forgive either.
The Lakers won their first round playoff series in May of 2012. No one would have expected or predicted it would be their last playoff series victory.
This is the enduring legacy of David Stern in Los Angeles. He stole from the Lakers like he was some NBA version of Robin Hood. He turned the Hornets/Pelicans into a contender of the future by getting them the #1 pick. He made the NBA $300 million dollars richer in the deal. And the Lakers got hosed.
It was power that started this David Stern mess and it was power that ended it. Someone once said, “Power corrupts.” Were they talking about David Stern when they followed that up with, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”