The three-team deal that was in place to send Chris Paul to the Lakers was killed by the league late Thursday, presumably at the behest of a group of small-market owners who loudly protested.
One such owner was Dan Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who emailed the commissioner directly to express his feelings on the matter.
Thankfully, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports obtained Gilbert’s email in its entirety, which reads as follows (no, we are not going to reproduce it in Comic Sans):Commissioner,
It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.
This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.
Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. That $21 million goes to non-taxpaying teams and to fund revenue sharing.
I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn’t appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard. (They would also get a large trade exception that would help them improve their team and/or eventually trade for Howard.) When the Lakers got Pau Gasol (at the time considered an extremely lopsided trade) they took on tens of millions in additional salary and luxury tax and they gave up a number of prospects (one in Marc Gasol who may become a max-salary player).
I just don’t see how we can allow this trade to happen.
I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.
When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?
Please advise….
Dan G.
It’s interesting that we never heard any similar protests to trades from “Dan G.” when he had LeBron James leading his team to the league’s best regular season record in 2009 and 2010, isn’t it?
The bottom line is this for small-market owners lacking the superstars necessary to make their teams currently relevant: You chose money during the lockout over competitive balance. Had you gone for both, you wouldn’t have a season right now. Since you chose money, the players got to keep control over where they could play once they became free agents, thanks to the system rules (like luxury taxes and mid-level exceptions) which would allow the larger-market teams to spend what they wanted to get those star players.
The deal for Chris Paul that was in place was not unfair to the Hornets. It may have been unfair to the rest of the league, especially if it was a building block for the Lakers to trade for Dwight Howard next. But the small-market owners signed up for this when they went for the cash grab in the lockout instead of choosing to fix the league’s competitive balance issues.
The protest may have worked this time, because the league has ownership control of the Hornets. But the Lakers still have all of their assets in place to now go and trade for Dwight Howard. Only this time, there won’t be anything that the league or its small-market owners will be able to do to stop it.
