Will David Stern Kill the Howard to Nets Blockbuster?

Last year at this time we were at the beginning of a labor dispute that cost the NBA a chunk of it’s season and finally brought the issue to the table of NBA teams stacking talent with general ease. The problem with the NBA they said was if you have the money you have the power. That dispute was settled and the outline was drawn up as to avoid ever having a pooling of talents like we have in Miami with Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James.

Now, a year later, we sit on the cusp of that very thing happening again — albeit the sequel changes the plot to the players came to a team via trades rather than free agency.

But the story is the exact same and it begs an important question: what the hell was the lockout for?

We were told that it was to even the playing field and evenly distribute the wealth (not strictly meaning in money here). But the Brooklyn Nets, Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers are about to pull off a deal that flies in the face of the labor dispute and wipes it’s mouth with the new CBA. In the deal, 11 players and various picks would switch hands — most notably Dwight Howard would finally take his talents to Brooklyn and join Joe Johnson ($90M) and Deron Williams ($100M).

Now, if the deal is finalized, Brooklyn would be giving up everything, betting the farm that this move sparks a rivalry with the Heat in the next five years. So on the surface it seems like a legal deal; but is it moral? The CBA was designed so teams can’t do the very thing that is being done — that’s why the luxury tax was amended and intensified.

Brooklyn will be well over that threshold and will be paying steep taxes in the coming years. But they have perhaps the richest owner in all of professional sports so really, it’s not Brooklyn’s problem.

Also — this is for my conspiracy nuts out there– David Stern’s biggest issue is teams losing money. He didn’t really care until the league began to lose money. If the Brooklyn Nets make this deal and are paying an insane amount of taxes, they’re essentially feeding the poor for allowing them to walk all over them.

Stern likely won’t kill the deal but should he is the question? If not, why did he have this massive lockout? The obvious answer is for the money and it was masked with this whole argument of having an “even playing field”. How even is two Eastern Conference teams having six of the best players in the league? Not even the Lakers or Bulls at they height of their greatness had more than two of the league’s best (except maybe when the Bulls grabbed Rodman).

The deal will be good for basketball from a financial stand point and really, that’s Stern’s No. 1 concern here. It will spark an instant interest in the Nets and will fill the palace they built for them to play in. Also, Stern is basically creating another major market to rake in the revenue. He did the same thing with Oklahoma City who is now the Midwest’s spot to go for basketball.

Yes the Bulls and Knicks will struggle but their fan bases will never bail on their team and will never stop turning a profit. If Stern can get this deal done, make it look legal and kosher, than who cares about the rest of the Eastern Conference? Between Miami and Brooklyn alone half of the NBA’s teams won’t finish in the red just from the handouts from the tax.

That’s not even getting to the actual revenue yet.

So let’s call this deal what it is. It’s a money maker that fixes the labor dispute we had and tears up the phony CBA in the process saying “well we thought we needed you but this works way better”.

I myself am torn between my love of seeing excellent basketball played at the highest level and my hatred for the greasy, slippery and slimy ways David Stern goes about his business — and that’s the issue here. We can’t have it both ways and that’s where Stern wins and beats us all. We can hate him all we want, call him out on his crooked behind the door dealings and his criminally innocent shrugs, but when it’s all said and done, we are still going to pay the man for his product.

Yes this deal epitomizes (or re-epitomizes) everything– everything— that is wrong with the NBA today and the way its run (heck, even Dan Gilbert is in on this one which tells you all you need to know). But at the end of the day, as paying customers who demand the highest possible quality of product, do we really care?

Well do we?