NBA Executive: “This Makes The League Feel Like It’s Rigged”

Right now, David Stern is Public Enemy No. 1. As he should be. And honestly, I don’t really know how to feel about the NBA as a whole. Basketball reasons? Really? It’s simply incomprehensible. And while the players involved in yesterday’s three-team trade have it worst of all heading into training camp today, having to answer questions about personnel decisions that they had nothing to do with, everyone that loves the game has a sour taste in their mouth. And thankfully, someone from the inside feels the same as we do.

From an NBA executive who had periodic talks with New Orleans throughout the process:

“We were all told by the league he was a tradeable player, and now they’re saying that Dell [Demps] doesn’t have the authority to make the trade? Now they’re saying that Dell is an idiot, that he can’t do his job. [Expletive] this whole thing. David’s drunk on power, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the players, and he doesn’t give a [expletive] about the hundreds of hours the teams put in to make that deal.

“How do the Lakers explain this to Odom? How does Houston deal with the guys it just tried to trade? Scola and Martin are going to be pissed at them, and who knows how long that takes to get over? Explain to me how the league kills this Pau Gasol deal, but allows Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol?

“To me, this makes the league feel like it’s rigged, that Stern just does whatever Stern wants to do. He’s messed up the competitive balance of this league a lot worse by killing the deal because you’ve completely destroyed the planning that New Orleans and Houston did and left them in shambles over this. I’ve never been so discouraged about this league, never so down.

“I mean, come on: Chris Paul is leaving New Orleans in 66 games. He’s gone. And what’s Dell Demps, and that franchise, going to have to show for it?”