Bernucca: Stern & NBA have made a mess of Hornets

45 Comments
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  • By Chris Bernucca
  • February 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM

spacer When it comes to running franchises, David Stern is doing a great impersonation of Ted Stepien.

Stepien owned the Cleveland Cavaliers in the early 1980s and spent most of his time firing coaches, overpaying mediocre players and trading away so many draft picks that the NBA instituted the “Ted Stepien Rule,” which now prevents teams from trading first-round picks in consecutive years.

Stepien’s mismanagement of the Cavaliers had to be fixed by the NBA. But the NBA – led by Stern – owns the mess that has become the New Orleans Hornets. So who fixes them?

The NBA has mismanaged the Hornets to a state of embarrassment. It vetoed a trade of superstar Chris Paul that would have netted four rotation players and a first-round pick while making the Hornets a legitimate playoff contender. Then it approved a second trade of Paul that landed empty assets – highlighted by an unsigned Eric Gordon – that could mire the Hornets in mediocrity for years to come.

The Hornets are at the bottom of the league in both performance and attendance as they continue to ask a dispassionate fan base to be patient. At the same time, they have been somewhat less than forthcoming about the state of their team and players.

On Monday, Jac Sperling – the man chosen by Stern to broker the sale of the Hornets – said the team’s future is very positive. He is right, because comparatively speaking, it cannot be any worse than the present.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, never one to pass up the chance to tell Stern and his sidekicks when they are not the smartest guys in the room, summed it up best earlier this week.

“Bad management gets you bad results,” he said.

Stern’s job is to make the league profitable as a whole while doing the same for as many individual owners as possible. The extent of his evaluation of players does not go beyond handing out punishment in extreme cases or selecting the occasional All-Star injury replacement.

But he scuttled the deal to send Paul to the Lakers primarily because it sent Paul to the Lakers – scant hours after reaching accord on a new collective bargaining agreement that was supposed to give smaller market teams a chance to keep their superstars.

Had the first deal been approved, the Hornets would have landed four proven players in Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Lamar Odom and Goran Dragic, plus a first-round pick from Houston.

At that point, Stern turned over all matters regarding Paul to operation executives Joel Litvin and Stu Jackson. Yes, that Stu Jackson, who may be as responsible as any one man for relocating the Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis. During his days running the Grizzlies, he gave Bryant Reeves a maximum contract extension, drafted Steve Francis and traded him for a bag of hammers and dealt a future first-round pick for Otis Thorpe that nearly became LeBron James.

So Litvin and Jackson went back to the drawing board and redirected Paul to the Clippers and immediately resigned the Hornets to a much longer and riskier path back to respectability.

The second deal landed Gordon, the expiring contract of Chris Kaman and Al-Farouq Aminu, plus an unprotected first-round pick that originally belonged to Minnesota.

There is no denying that the NBA’s intent was clearing long-term expenses off the books of the Hornets and making them more attractive to a prospective buyer. Scola and Martin have long-term eight-figure deals, and Odom has a pricy team option. Meanwhile, Gordon and Aminu are still on their rookie contracts and Kaman’s eight figures come off the books this summer.

But what may be attractive on paper forces you to look away when it is on full display. Instead of being in position to seriously contend for a playoff spot, the Hornets are by far the worst team in the Western Conference and headed for 50-plus losses in a 66-game season.

This was the starting lineup for the Hornets in Monday’s rare win over the Jazz: Trevor Ariza, Gustavo Ayon, Kaman, Marco Belinelli and Greivis Vasquez. Off the bench were Aminu, Xavier Henry, Lance Thomas and Donald Sloan.

This could have been their lineup: Ariza, Scola, Ayon, Martin and Dragic, with Odom, Belinelli and Vasquez off the bench.

As a fan, GM or prospective buyer, which lineup would you rather see on the court?

The Hornets unquestionably have been hit hard by injuries this season; Neither lineup includes rotation players Emeka Okafor, Jarrett Jack, Carl Landry and Jason Smith. But whatever your opinion is of Scola, Martin, Odom and Dragic – and we think pretty highly of all of them – they are healthy and making measurable contributions to their current teams.

It is obvious that the NBA has decided that the Hornets should shed payroll, take their lumps and build through youth to attract a buyer. Except that buyer hasn’t materialized, because people with enough money to buy a sports team know a dog with fleas when they see one. The NBA paid $310 million for the Hornets. In January, Forbes Magazine valued the franchise at $285 million.

Stern has said that a local individual or group would come forward by mid-season. That’s next week, folks.

Sperling was at practice Monday and twice referenced a “new owner” to local media but had no specifics. Meanwhile, there is a collective plea to a dispassionate, disenfranchised fan base to remain patient while being disingenuous on several fronts.

Despite making the playoffs in three of four seasons since returning from their displacement to Oklahoma City in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Hornets have finished better than 23rd in attendance just once. This season, they are 27th at 14,302 per game. One of the teams they are ahead of is the Nets, who are a nearly as bad and also a lame duck in Newark.

And if you want your fan base to remain patient, it might be a good idea to not mislead them.

Kaman was acquired because of his attractive cap slot, but the Hornets gave him a forced vacation for six games while it explored trade possibilities. Finding nothing overwhelming appealing, they returned the big man to active duty.

What exactly was the purpose of that? Were the Hornets looking to trade Kaman for players who could provide immediate help, which the first Paul trade would have done? Or were they looking to deal him for another expiring contract, which we like to call “trading sideways”?

The handling of Gordon has been even worse. One of the NBA’s best young shooting guards, he was clearly the centerpiece of the return package for Paul and the foundation of the team’s rebuilding plans. He could have been signed to a contract extension that would have shown fans that the plan is under way. Instead, GM Dell Demps – with input from the NBA, of course – refused to give him a maximum four-year, $62 million deal.

If you really want the guy, you don’t nickel-and-dime him – unless, of course, you know more about his knee injury than you have told your fans. Gordon has been limited to just two games this season due to what was originally said to be a bone bruise but ultimately required surgery.

The original prognosis was three weeks. After four weeks, Gordon was not close to returning, and the team revised his return window to as much as six weeks. As that window began closing last week, Gordon was found to need arthroscopic surgery that will keep him out another six weeks.

It could be April before Gordon is ready to return. He becomes a restricted free agent July 1 and should be in no hurry to get back on the court for the Hornets this season – or maybe any other season. The Hornets already have refused to max him out once; it is not outside the realm of possibility that they could pass on him again should he receive a huge offer from the Mavericks or his hometown Pacers. Or he could sign a qualifying offer, spend one more season in the NBA’s self-made purgatory and be free as a bird come 2013.

So to sum up, here is what the Hornets now have to offer a prospective buyer, thanks to the smartest guys in the room:

  • A truly awful team in a city that has a history of difficulty in supporting it.
  • Aminu, the eighth overall pick who has shown next to nothing compared to other recent No. 8 picks Brandon Knight, Rudy Gay and even Channing Frye. He is better than Joe Alexander, though.
  • Gordon, whose next game probably will be in late October 2012, possibly will not be with the Hornets, who have some serious damage control to do with their prized possession.
  • Kaman, whose cap slot of $14 million almost certainly will have to be spread among multiple players or used to overpay a middling player. No established star in his right mind would want to be part of a team whose purse strings are in the firm grip of the folks at Olympic Tower with a massive rebuilding plan on tap.
  • Minnesota’s unprotected first-round pick, which isn’t going to be anywhere near the top of the draft and could actually end up being worse than Houston’s pick. Even if the Timberwolves were as bad as the Hornets, a duo from the collection of teenagers Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Harrison Barnes would still beg a tremendous amount of patience.

Nice job, Dave.

Stepien would be proud.

Chris Bernucca is a regular contributor to SheridanHoops.com. His columns appear Wednesdays and Sundays. You can follow him on Twitter.

 

Related posts:

  1. Hornets G Gordon needs knee scope, out 6 more weeks
  2. Stern issues statement on Chris Paul veto
  3. Hubbard column: Stern gives players a reason to stop smiling
  4. E-mail from Dan Gilbert urged Stern veto of CP3 trade: Yahoo
  5. Hubbard: New, pro-Stern, pro-Clipper award projections
Filed Under: Columns Tagged With: AlFarouq-Aminu, Chris Kaman, Chris Paul, David Stern, Eric Gordon, Goran Dragic., Jac Sperling, Joel Litvin, Kevin Martin, Lamar Odom, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Luis Scola, Mark Cuban, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Hornets, Stu Jackson

Comments

  1. spacer Bee Dat says:
    February 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm

    oh, and as for the attendance thing, is it our fault that we are among the leagues 3 smallest markets? our attendance numbers are not half bad, taken in context. You compare us to nj, the most densely populated state on the map.

    Reply
  2. spacer Bee Dat says:
    February 17, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    As one of the many dispassionate fans of the Hornets, I beg to disagree. While not unanimous, most of us feel the clippers trade was better for the organization than the lakers trade. Rebuilding is not a crime. You discredit the New Orleans fans for the _th time (i lost count about halfway through the article) when you suggest that we’re not patient enough to wait out the rebuilding process, or not smart enough to see that rebuilding from scratch now gives us the best future (oh wait that’s you, oops).

    A roster consisting of egordon, ariza, ayon, okafor, jack & greivis (or hopefully an upgraded pg), jsmith, landry/kaman/or young player(s) their traded for, 2 of the aforementioned rookis, plus 10-20 mil of cap space does sound like an exciting future.

    Regarding gordon, while many of us would have liked to see the deal consummated, why would the hornets throw the max at him when he is restricted and nursing a knee injury. We were negotiating from a position of strength and outside of goodwill had no rational reason to offer the max at that point.

    Now if Stern and co. have been lying to us and sell the team to out-of-towners, disregard my comments. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

    Reply
  3. spacer Janjan says:
    February 17, 2012 at 7:14 am

    chris,

    rebuilding while in mediocrity only applies to big market teams, we small market teams need to do it through the draft

    If we were, lets say the Knicks. We will take the LAL-HOU deal, and wait for a star that says “i want to play with the Knicks”. then we can package these players to get that STAR.

    BUT we are not the knicks, you would never hear any STAR player say “I want to play for the hornets” thus limiting the value of these “assets”. The only way for us to be great is to be gamble on the draft.

    Reply
  4. spacer NotoriousBEE says:
    February 17, 2012 at 12:05 am

    What a terrible article! Boo to you and your idiotic opinion. Thank god we have folks at hornets247 and atthehive.com to provide some insightful commentary instead of this garbage. How could you possibly think a perennial 8th seed of 30 something’s is better than the current blowup project. Moreover, had you actually watched a hornets game this year, you would realize that the hornets, with a healthy Eric Gordon, would be competing for the 8th seed you hold in such high esteem. You sir, are a moron.

    Reply
  5. spacer Jordan says:
    February 16, 2012 at 7:22 pm

    This article is a joke. I’m too sick from reading it to even go into why.

    Reply
  6. spacer Daniel says:
    February 16, 2012 at 7:20 pm

    This article is based on one thing: you assuming the Hornets want to be middle of pact. Which would we, as fans, rather have? 3 years of below average team, then a legitimate contender, or 10 years of first round exits? I think every fan base would take the first.

    We have Gordon as a restricted free agent, that is a step in the right direction. Now do you remember the Hornets before CP3? Absolutely pitiful team. You give them Cp3 the next year in the draft, and all the sudden, 2 years later, we are fighting with LA for that first in the West spot, and one game from the Western Conference finals.

    I assume with as loaded as the draft is this year, we will find someone of Cp3 calibre in the top 3. As loaded as the draft is, as you said in another comment, we may find another David West in the middle of the first if we scout well enough. Then you throw in Gordon, and we are fairly well set for the future.

    Thanks for the article and attention, but we as hornets screwed up our one shot of building around Cp3, and with new management and a upcoming new owner, we fully intend on doing it the right way this time. We want to be contenders, not just a first round exit.

    Reply
    • spacer Daniel says:
      February 16, 2012 at 7:28 pm

      Oh and mr. writer, please respond to this comment if you are not too busy. I would love for you to explain to me as a sixers fan, why your opinion of which trade is worse is more important than I, a fairly content Hornets fan who follows everything the team does.

      Reply
      • spacer Chris says:
        February 17, 2012 at 8:33 am

        I’m not too busy. I want my team in the playoffs, every year, even if it means a first-round exit. I don’t want to start seasons with no hope of postseason play and wondering what teenager could possibly rescue my franchise. I am not a big believer in the draft; I believe it is more hit and miss than most people feel. I would much rather try to build a team with established young NBA players. It is quite possible that over the long term, the approved deal will serve the Hornets well. But right now, it is not. And there is no finite answer to what “long term” actually means. The Sixers had a number of high draft picks in the mid 90s and made nothing of them. Even with the drafting of Iverson, they still needed to couple him with an outstanding coach and established young players such as Ratliff, McKie, George Lynch, Tyrone Hill, etc. Some of this is horses for courses. But if I was a Hornets fan, I’d be miserable right now. I don’t like waiting, and I’d rather make the playoffs while I am.

        Reply
        • spacer Daniel says:
          February 17, 2012 at 3:09 pm

          Some Hornets fans agree with you. Most don’t. The educated don’t. Most other teams in the NBA view the Hornets as a place that players just go to and be unhappy. Hate their job, location and management until their contract is up so they can leave. We as fans hate that. We as fans want a title. Thats all we want. Want to know why we want a title? Because of what I said above. I will type this in all caps, because you seem not to understand it: MAKING THE PLAYOFFS WILL NOT CONVINCE OTHER FRANCHISES WE ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THEM. We have made the playoffs before. Big woop. With a team centered around Martin and Scola thats all it would be. An extension of the regular season, because we would know we couldn’t beat the Bulls, Heat, OKC, heck probably not even the Sixers. We have been to the playoffs before, but only one time have we had a chance to win it al. Losing in that series to San antonio was one of the most painful experiences of my life because I KNEW we could have won it all that year. This season is not nearly as painful as that series ending. Why would we want to become middle of the pack just to feel that pain of getting knocked out every year again? POSSIBLY upsetting someone in the first round and then getting our hopes up just to get crushed in the second round?

          You seem caught in the idea of “making the playoffs is good” but it isn’t. Making the playoffs if you have a chance to win it all is. Making the playoffs as we would be is basically meaningless. As a Sixer fan, you should know this. But you don’t. I understand you wanting to defend your work. Good for you, 99% of the time you are a well educated author who is extremely informed. But this article is not. It is biased and wrong.

          Once again, please reply if you are not too busy.

          Reply
          • spacer Chris says:
            February 17, 2012 at 11:55 pm

            Daniel,

            I see your side of things. I really do. I just don’t agree with it. I don’t see a lot of good coming out of the notion of telling fans, players, team employees, city officials, etc. “We are not competing this year.” Maybe it’s because I am a HS coach and I’m consumed with competing. But I don’t think making the playoffs is meaningless; I think it breeds the right attitude throughout the organization.

            Gotta go. Have to write the morning roundup, which will be led by your Hornets “stopping the Linsanity.” Long live Susan Powter.

            CB

  7. spacer Chris Trew (@christrew) says:
    February 16, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    I’m just going to come back to this page in a few weeks when we have a long term lease and local owner and then point my fingers and laugh.

    Who Dat. I’m In.

    Reply
  8. spacer NOH Domination says:
    February 16, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    Would you rather have a lineup of dragic, martin, ariza, scola, okafor or jack, gordon, ariza, ayon, anthony davis with another potential lottery pick the following year? I know which one I’m taking and it’s the one with anthony davis. Hornets are in a fine position, just live out the year.

    Reply
  9. spacer Joe Gerrity says:
    February 16, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    Just want to make it clear to anyone reading these comments (and apparently to Burnucca as well) that the Joe leaving comments here is not me, Joe Gerrity from Hornets247. A lot of people are incorrectly assuming it is, even though the style is very different than mine.

    There are lots of people who watch the Hornets and are named Joe. I actually know half a dozen Joe’s that regularly read Hornets247.

    Our fan base may be relatively small, but we’re not so small that we only have one Joe.

    Happy Mardi Gras

    Reply
    • spacer Joe Gerrity says:
      February 16, 2012 at 1:26 pm

      Looks like I misread a comment and Burnucca didn’t assume that Joe was me. Still, lots of others have.

      Sorry about that.

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