A quick history lesson on the Lakers' downward spiral

http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-lakers-history-20160228-story.html

 

I would absolutely believe this to be true. "Greed is good" has been the this country's motto for quite some time now, the NBA is no exception. It's actually a perfect cultural climate for our new future overlord...President Trump.

 

to me it's pretty simple why stern vetoed the cp3 trade. two reasons, lebron and selling the hornets

stern wanted nothing in the way of the league's poster boy and golden child lebron finally winning that ring. the heat had just come off an upset loss in the finals to dallas and stern knew all too well that if the lakers were to acquire cp3, then they would've also more than likely have acquired dwight howard as well.

cp3-kobe-howard? that's an unstoppable team that would've had a pretty long run of success in all likelihood. and we're talking "happy" dwight howard. who would've been in his element playing alongside his buddy chris paul. cp3 was the PG the lakers needed to compete with the westbrooks and parkers, something they had sorely lacked. that team would've been much too big a threat to the heat and stern didn't want that. the lakers time to win was finished in the eyes of the commissioner and he got his wish, as lebron and the heat won the 2012 title with relative ease.

as for the issue of selling the hornets. stern knew cp3 had played his last game in new orleans and taking full advantage of the league's ownership of the team, vetoes the trade and declines the better return in favor of a far worse return so that the hornets can successfully tank the 11-12 season to secure the #1 pick, anthony davis. securing that future star would make the hornets a far better buy as the new owner would have a player to build around and market for years to come.

let's revisit the return the hornets would've received in the original cp3 to lakers trade

Lakers receive-chris paul
Hornets receive-goran dragic, luis scola, kevin martin, houston's 1st round pick
Rockets receive-pau gasol

now remember, this trade came after the lockout that shortened the 11-12 season. one of the lockout's main goals being to minimize the power of the big market teams and to stop the recent trend of "super teams." the lakers with cp3 would've no doubt been a super team. the lockout undoubtedly succeeded in lessening the power of the big markets and giving the smaller market teams a chance. clearly, the lakers have been the biggest casualty of this new NBA. back to the trade

stern rejects the original trade and instead accepts an offer from the clippers in which the hornets receive the following:

al-farouq aminu, chris kaman, eric gordon, and the clippers 1st round pick (used to draft austin rivers)

now compared to the original trade, this group of players the hornets received is hilariously weak. but that's exactly what stern wanted. this allowed the hornets to tank the 11-12 season and surprise! get the #1 overall pick in 2012 which they used to draft anthony davis.

so the lakers decide to re-strengthen the team a different way, which is one of the main reason for the crappy situation the lakers have been in the past few seasons. knowing they needed a PG to be able to keep up with the elite PG's in the west, they give up draft picks for a 40 year old, broken down steve nash and still manage to acquire howard who clearly didn't want to be in LA from day one and had no desire to stay long term. we all know how the 12-13 season ended up and they end up losing howard for nothing while nash could never stay healthy. factor in the multiple coaching disasters and here we are today. no big name FA wants to play here and while things could be looking up in the near future, the past few seasons have been something no lakers fan could've ever imagined.

 

That all seems to make sense for the conspiracy theorists among us....raises own hand. But as I understand it there are representatives from all the lottery teams in the room prior to the TV show who monitor the whole ping pong balls flying around in the transparent container until one randomly hits the perfect angle to go up the tube.....process. How do you "rig" something like that?

 

yes he was, forgot about him

 

i hate talking about this, but it is THE reason the lakers suck right now. as for the conspiracy angle...it's justified.

conspiracy: a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

the group: stern and some of the owners.
the harm: the lakers franchise was basically crippled for a decade, minimum
the secret: the public reasoning ("basketball reasons") was a misrepresentation of the real motives, which were twofold, imo:

1. saving face in the wake of the lockout. the bs narrative about parity (what a crock, seriously--it was about money) dominated the owners' side of the table. then the rich get richer a few days after we miss half a season. people were pissed. stern capitulated.
2. propping up another big market team. the greatest irony in all of this was that after the deal was nixed, paul was then moved to the other la franchise, to play with another allstar. he wasn't moved to milwaukee or charlotte. he was moved to la. this is how stern got to have his cake and eat it, too.

they can talk of a better return; i thought it was dubious at the time to call the clips offer better (they didn't even include bledsoe), and it's sort of laughable with hindsight being 20/20.

they can also talk of how the nba was simply faithfully executing its duties as franchise steward, but they had previously stated that hornets management had autonomy. even if they argue that they reversed themselves because they didn't think the hornets would actually move paul prior to an ownership switch (and thus they're protecting their investment by blocking a paul trade), this just means that they should have rescinded the trade and made no other moves with the franchise player. that they turned around and delivered him to the same market slams the door shot on that line of reasoning.

the only thing i can't figure out is why the lakers didn't file suit against the league. look at the carnage.


now, i don't think the league fixes draft position, but man, it certainly works out well for the right teams a lot of the time, doesn't it? i'll say i have my eye on philly since they got nba OG colangelo...they have a lot of eggs in this particular lottery basket.

 

"Basketball reasons" so Lakers can't build a super team now and in the future (ala the then new CBA) but hey guess what, Miami ended up building a super team but of course the league doesn't bat an eye.

 

I'm not particularly bummed about losing the kid the pick will come with, but rather the incredibly valuable trade chip the pick would be.

 

Yeah, #3, not so much. But #1's have yielded all-stars in trades in the past. Simmons' hype is as big or bigger than Wiggins' was and he turned into Kevin Love (bad deal in hindsight).

 

because they had the league's poster boy on their roster

let's also not forget stern and donald sterling go way back. stern nixing the lakers offer in favor the clippers offer was a classic case of someone doing a solid for a good friend. and there is no possible way on earth the clippers offer was better. you could try arguing that to me for a million years and it still wouldn't be true