What the hell is going on with the CP3 trade attempts?

There are so many possibilities and opinions on this circus that it may become the subject of a book someday. "The Trading of Chris Paul and the Pointless Lockout" or "When David Stern's Dementia Became Obvious: A Laker Executive's Memoir". But here's my take.

The biggest wrenches in this situation are perception and timing. In some minds, the NBA was locked out for five months was as a direct result of what Lebron and more importantly Carmelo Anthony did last year. You can talk all you want about splitting revenues, sign and trade restrictions, and contract length. All of those terms and considerations gloss over one primary concern: power.

Without getting into too much boring detail here, David Stern and the NBA made the decision years ago to market the league based on its stars, rather than its franchises. It's a game where success and failure can literally be determined by one player, (ask Cleveland) and so using the stars as the vehicle to sell the league made (and still makes) sense. You don't hear promotions for the Knicks against the Hornets on ESPN, you hear about CP3 against Melo etc. etc.

By doing this in the 90's (Jordan, Barkley, Malone, the tail end of Bird etc.) and now (Lebron, Kobe, Melo, Howard, CP3, etc.) the NBA has achieved its highest levels of success ever (granted there was a huge post-Jordan talent vacuum in between). But it's a level of success that comes at a cost. A player that can win games single handed, sell tickets by showing up, and command millions in endorsements is no longer a pawn, no longer an employee in the traditional sense. It would be more accurate to refer to him as a limited partner, but one whose income is tied only to his own performance in the long-term, not on a nightly basis.

Which leads to a shifting in power. Players still can't pay their own salaries, build their own arenas, or fill their own rosters (yet). But in a media hungry world where fans crave unprecedented access and coverage of their favorite athletes, players can shape their own messages and wield considerable leverage. All it takes is star tweeting that he wants to play in New York and the rumors start. Every time he misses a clutch shot he's tanking to get traded. If he's on the bench more than usual the coach is tired of his whining about wanting to get out of town. When they lose he answers questions about his trade demands and when they win...he answers questions about his trade demands. It's a cycle that impacts everyone, including the owners.

People tend to see what they want to see or what they fear they will see. So imagine you are an owner of an NBA franchise and your star player who is up for free agency at the end of the year (or two) comes out and demands a trade. You know from past experience (watching other gazillionaire white guys deal with it) that once this happens performance often starts to decline along with attitude. Now the owner is hyper-sensitive to anything that even looks like petulance or pouting so he sees it in every missed free-throw, every blown defensive assignment, and every disagreement with a coach. It doesn't take long before the owner (or the GM) says, "Enough!" and trades the player for $0.75 on the dollar to, "get something for him."

With the new CBA (and even prior to it) players are perhaps even more motivated to make these trades happen during the final season of their current contracts through a sign and trade. The reason is simply financial, they are allowed to sign longer extensions with their current teams prior to being moved than they would be allowed to sign with their new teams after the trade. Some look at it as win-win. The player gets a longer deal and and the owner and his franchise get something for a player that was going to leave for nothing anyway. Nobody wants to be the next Cleveland.

This idea that a player (an "employee") could determine his own trade destination, was such a sticking point for the owners that they were willing to lock the players out and miss nearly 20 games each to stop it. Not all the owners of course, but most (and the ones who benefit from this type of movement sat very quietly hoping nobody would notice them when this came up). It's not the money, it's not even that players want to leave for greener pastures, it's the power that the media and enlarged player personalities can generate and its ability to erode the power of ownership. It's not a surprise that many stars eventually end up playing in big markets, the problem is that there is a developing perception around the league that they can decide to force their way there whenever they feel like it or whenever one of their friends signs there.

So rewind to three weeks ago with that long-winded back story. The lockout, that was supposed to regulate player movement and restore power to ownership, has been over for 3.5 seconds. What are the first stories that come out? "Where are Chis Paul and Dwight Howard going to end up?" You can't blame the owners for saying, "...wait...we just lost millions in an ugly and public CBA battle to change...nothing? Superstars can still force their way out of small markets whenever they feel like it? Oh heeeelllll no! ... Oh and by the way we own the damn team so why are we going to screw ourselves over by making the Lakers better?"

When the first trade proposal sending Paul to the Lakers came through it seemed like most observers' reactions were, "Already?" But many owners reactions more closely resembled, "GVOISNDBEO#$*&@@!!!!! LKVNEOIVNEO#$*!&@!!!!!!" Which roughly translates to, "You have to be fucking kidding me, I'm going to kill one of my lawn guys for sport this afternoon."

Which probably would have happened, but luckily for at least 29 lawn guys there was yet another wrinkle here which almost never happens...

All the owners were together in the same place... Because they had JUST signed the new CBA, that was going to prevent this type of player leverage, at the NBA offices in New York. It had been approved and announced a few days earlier but not actually signed. Had the trade been approved by the teams even three hours later CP3 probably ends up a Laker... But it didn't. So these arrogant rich guys got to sit in a room together and stew, and vent, and rage, and ultimately concoct an argument for Stern that probably went something like this...

Owners: We're going to kill you.

Stern: Agghhhh!

Owners: WE own the Hornets!? WHY did WE trade one of the best players in the league to the Lakers... Sorry Mr. Buss.

Stern: Mmm?

Owners: We're going to kill you.

Stern: Agghhh!! No, kill another lawn guy for chrissakes, I'll cancel the deal.

So he did, and now the league finds itself embroiled in quite possibly the most awkward conflict of interest in the history of sports.

They collectively own a franchise that has an unbelievably valuable commodity in Chris Paul that is going to be playing somewhere else at the end of the season, one way or another. They just locked out their own businesses in part to stop small market teams, like New Orleans, from being pressured into trading unhappy superstars to larger markets, like LA. If they trade him on the same day that the agreement is signed they're essentially saying that the lockout was for nothing and they get the added benefit of looking completely impotent or incompetent (take your pick). If they don't trade him the franchise that they own collectively might go under before someone can buy it from them AND Paul is leaving anyway. And not to mention that one of these owners has to sign off on trading for Paul while collectively agreeing to trade him to himself. Conflict. Of. Interest.

So to sum up this extremely long winded argument the problem with the attempts to trade Paul are:

1. The timing was horrible. The first act the league completes after a five month lockout in part due to unrestrained player movement cannot be an apparently unrestrained move by a player.

2. The league cannot have the perception, true or false, that they sold a marquee player from a small market to a large one. Again, why did we have a lockout?

Perception and timing.

What's the solution?

Umm... there isn't one.

Unless of course they want to trade him to the Celtics...