I think that this is more about Howard than anything... Paul to LA wasn't, on its own, an unbeatable move, since it leaves them incredibly weak on big men. But the fact that they hung on to Bynum which set up the possibility of making a pitch for Howard is what had the rest of the league so pissed off.
The timing of Howard coming out and saying that he wants to go to the Nets was also interesting... just as this was all blowing up. I wonder if he wanted to remove himself from this whole circus. If Howard was traded to NJ first, I don't think this would have exploded the way it did.
The league had plenty of opportunity to legitimately address competitive balance issues in the CBA negotiations. Instead, they largely ignored competitive balance and focused on maximum savings. Maybe Stern told the players that this CBA would make these sorts of moves impossible. If they believed him, they weren't doing their homework, since every pundit out there knew competitive balance was tweaked but certainly not fixed.
|