Imagine yourself driving down a highway when you spot a few cop cars on the other side of the road.
Then imagine right behind those cop cars a multi-car wreck unlike one you've ever seen. It keeps getting worse as you drive along. Even as you think it ended suddenly more wreckage appears. It's so horrifying that you want to turn away, yet you can't. The carnage has your eyes glued to the wreck even as your mind is begging you to stop.
That very feeling is what journalists, bloggers, and fans are experiencing when looking at the current state of the NBA. It almost has some wondering if the lockout that endangered the entire 2011-12 season was actually a better situation.
Now granted, having stadium workers lose at least 41 days worth of paychecks in this current economy is a terrible act under any circumstance. That being said, the way the leauge has behaved in recent days is making the alternative look slightly more peaceful.
The highlight for this thinking has been the ongoing debacle involving New Orleans Hornets (for the time being) point guard Chris Paul.
A couple of weeks after the NBA owners and the players' union declared a tense detente in settling on a new collective bargaining agreement it was evident that it didn't change anything that caused the tensions between the two sides. As teams allowed players to practice in their facilities and were able to talk to free agents 'without making concrete progress' (wink, wink) the prospect of Paul landing in Madison Square Garden was becoming more distant.
Even though the New York Knicks were his preffered destination, the looming signing of free agent center Tyson Chandler effectively took them out of the running for Paul due to the salary cap. That left the door open for the Los Angeles Lakers to make a move. They, the Hornets, and the Houston Rockets began working on a trade that would send Paul to LA, Lakers forward/center Pau Gasol to Houston, and Lakers forward Lamar Odom, Rockets forward.center Luis Scola, along with Rockets guard Kevin Martin to New Orleans. The Hornets would also receive draft picks as part of the deal.
Then as the parties agreed on the trade and both the players and owners were ratifying the new CBA on December 8th NBA Commisioner David Stern did something that no one saw coming.
Stern, both out of his ego and a need to have the owners save face as to why they went into a lockout, vetoed the trade citing 'basketball reasons' for doing so. To say that no one bought that line would be an understatement.
This move by Stern was unprecedented in the NBA. The fact that he was able to make this move as the Hornets are owned by the league, made the move ever more shocking. Then as details of why Stern really did this started to come out (like this Bloomberg interview) it only pissed off everyone more, & I mean EVERYONE.
Players were pissed because it showed that owners were still Hell bent of limiting where they could go to. Agents were pissed because the shockwave of this move essentially froze the market just as free agency was set to begin. NBA team executives were pissed because one of their own, Hornets GM Dell Demps, pulled off a decent trade under the circumstances and was basically knee-capped by Stern for it.
This move has pissed off the players so much that rumblings of a possible strike started popping up on Twitter within minutes of the veto being announced. Those rumblings haven't gone away at all even as days have passed by since this happened.
One would think that after being told by everyone how stupidly their move was that the NBA would, I don't know, try to act sane. We're not so fortunate though.
In the days following this move an unbelieveable chain of events has unfolded.
Odom, who felt disrespected by the Lakers, asked to be traded & was dealt to the Dallas Mavericks for essentially a bag of magic beans.
The NBA almost allowed a horrible trade involving free agent forward David West being sent to the Boston Celtics go through before being saved by the Indiana Pacers who signed West to a two-year $20 million contract.
Chaucey Billups, a model player throughout his career, became collateral damage of the Chandler signing when the Knicks waived him via the amnesty clause.
The NBA, after it emasculated Demps & now have relegated him to a mere spectator, are trying to deal Paul to the Los Angeles Clippers only to find ways to mess it up.
Meanwhile the Hornets only have six people in training camp right now.
& now CBS Sports's Ken Berger is reporting that Billups, who was picked up on waivers by the Clippers even as he threatened any team that did, is merely being used as a pawn by them to complete the Paul trade. This of course has pissed off more people.
Now let's leave aside a couple of things.
Leave aside the fact that Paul, along with Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard (who's in a completely different mess) are forcing their way out of their team ala Carmelo Anthony last season.
Leave aside that the real reason for the lockout was over how the Miami Heat's Big 3 of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh was formed.
Forget those two things for a minute, now ask yourself this: Have you ever pictured the NBA being so dysfunctional near the start of the season?
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