NBA Kills Chris Paul-to-Los Angeles Lakers Trade, Impacts Orlando Magic Positively and Negatively

This was going to be an excellent trade for the Houston Rockets. They would’ve freed up just enough cap space to sign Nene. They could’ve ended up as a top 4 seed.

or the GM of the Rockets is just dumb.

I don’t necessarily agree. Was it questionable? Yes. But isn’t the NBA supposed to protect its’ product? (They might be hurting it by doing this, granted.). After all, they are the owners of the Hornets. They had to step in and prevent it from going down, didn’t they? Well, it is completely logical to think that New Orleans was going to receive compensation, but isn’t the NBA’s (Stern’s) Job to protect the product. High concentration of star players in few markets would kill it in the long run. You can’t have 8 or 9 of the top 15 players playing in 3 or 4 teams. At the beginning it is interesting and new, but what would happen after 3 or 4 seasons with the same results: FINAL = LA vs Miami? Will the overall lose value, well, I think it WILL. If you consider that Stern did not legally “vetoed” the transaction as if it were any other team, he took a business decision as a owner of the Hornets. Minutes after the trade was unofficially announced man fans reacted by saying: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COMPETITIVE BALANCE? This would have been an equally difficult blow for the NBA, especially after the lockout melodrama. One thing would have been an independent owner pulling the transaction, but the NBA could not have done it: they have too many constituencies to look for.

I can’t believe this post actually got 7 recs. Did the rest of you guys actually read this? The post is full of stupid analogies that make no sense. Any intelligent person would conclude when NBA players said that they want the right to choose where to live and work they meant in terms of existing franchises in the league. I don’t think it was the goal of any NBA player to fight for the right to force the NBA to establish a team in Boise, Idaho if that’s where they decided to live. They just wanted the right to free agency and choose which team to play for.

“If you work for a company based out of Seattle and you want to live in Los Angeles, too bad. They don’t open a Los Angeles branch to accommodate your whims.”

“You have to quit your current job and try and find a new job in L.A.”

No NBA player was fighting for the right to force their team to move to a city of their choosing. I don’t think Chris Paul has asked once for the league to move the Hornets to New York. He just wanted the right to play in New York, which is definitely his choice when he becomes a free agent. In other words, while not quitting his current job, he’d let his contract expire, become unemployed and try to find a new employer in the city of his choosing. In other words, he’d be doing exactly what you said. He’d be quitting his job (allowing his contract to expire) and attempting to find a job in another city. He just gave his employer a year’s notice that he wouldn’t be back and gave them a chance to trade him for some value.

People have the right to move to another city and work for another company. Where your analogy fails is that you’re comparing a league with a finite number of teams in a finite number of cities to the general labor market. For instance, film director can live anywhere he wants. But if he wants to actually work, he’s probably going to probably be limited to working in either New York, L.A., or Vancouver. This is the same case as NBA players where you can only work where the league has franchises.

“If you are employed by the NBA and the NBA says they need you at the Milwaukee office or the New Orleans office then you work at that office. Don’t like it? Then don’t work for the NBA.”

“That is the actual reality of adult freedom that most of us operate under.”

Why are you even comparing the real world for most people to playing in the NBA? The reality is that once you graduate from high school or college, you can choose what city you’d like to live in and what employer you’d like to work for (excluding the military). In the NBA, when you are drafted, you have NO choice in where you play. If you want to play in the league, your have to play for the team and the city that chooses you. Your only other option is play in another league or overseas. Why aren’t you saying anything about how the adult freedom that most of us operate under allows us to choose where and who to work for but doesn’t afford an NBA player the same choice? Yes, they have the choice to play in another league. But that’s like saying you can use your Computer Science degree to either work for Microsoft or else you have to work in another country. I don’t think many people would accept those terms.

You make it sound like an NBA player wanting to be able to choose what city and team to player for AFTER his contract expires is a bad thing. Let’s be clear. These players aren’t demanding trades. They’re telling their current team that they won’t re-sign and won’t sign extensions if traded to certain teams, which is their right after becoming free agents. They have some teams they’d prefer to play for and are telling teams they won’t sign extensions unless they’re traded to those teams. And most teams are unwilling to trade for a guy who they can’t extend. They’re not forcing their way into another city anymore than Carmelo Anthony did. They’re just giving their teams a chance to trade them for some value and not get left empty-handed like Cleveland and Toronto did with Lebron James and Chris Bosh.

While I agree it’s not a human rights issue and the whole slavery thing was ridiculous, you’re almost as wrong and ridiculous in the other direction.

At first the owners were furious because Paul was getting traded to a big market team. Now Stern just did the one thing that could turn the players against the NBA as a whole and it’s a mistake which makes the league look awful. The public will definitely land on the side of the players on this one. This could get ugly.