WHUDDUP.COM

The coincidence was uncanny: Blind bidding on the amnesty waiver wire, several teams with a chance to claim Chauncey Billups, and somehow the Los Angeles Clippers made the highest offer. All these years owner Donald Sterling was the bane of the commissioner’s existence, and now David Stern needed him in the worst way. All the times Stern let the creep slide on professional and personal indiscretions, the NBA knew the Clippers were the final, most legitimate suitor still standing to bail the league out of its own self-createdChris Paul debacle.

So, yes, the Clippers bid just north of $2 million on Billups, and the NBA has left everyone justified to wonder about the purity of that process. No one blinked. No one voiced a grievance. Nevertheless, this is the fairest question of the post-lockout NBA: From Stern to deputies Adam Silver, Joel Litvin and Stu Jackson, how can anyone ever be sure – despite denials to the contrary – that someone didn’t tip Clippers management to make sure they placed the highest bid?

After all, Stern and his lieutenants were no longer playing commissioner and bureaucrats, they were playing basketball God in the NBA. This isn’t to charge them with fraud, but to simply say: There’s an appearance of impropriety that ought to be unsettling to everyone.

Under a different circumstance, we could simply give a nod to Clippers general manager Neil Olshey for such an astute move, but these are unprecedented times in the NBA and facts are facts: Until Billups was a Clipper, the Clippers were sluggish to include Eric Gordon into the trade for Paul. The uncertain deals behind this deal should forever haunt the NBA.

Make no mistake: The amnesty bids were shuttled through the same office – the same desk – as the bidding on the superstar point guard. Whatever the outcome the NBA truly wanted, the assignment of Billups played a critical role in the outcome of the trade. It doesn’t matter that the NBA muscled a better deal than the one Hornets GM Dell Demps negotiated with the Los Angeles Lakers. Pro sports are forever a results-oriented business, but this time it’s different.

The process matters.

The process was everything.

“That’s our problem as a league now,” one NBA general manager told Yahoo! Sports. “Everything they do gets thrown into question now, because they have conflicts everywhere. It all got exposed in this one – all came out in the public.”

The NBA pushed aside a standing general manager, Demps, and the league office led by Stern (the commissioner), Litvin (an attorney) and Jackson (the failed GM of all GMs) ran the trade talks for the Hornets. They were no longer spectators to the machinations of the 30 teams’ movements, but active participants, controlling the destiny of one of the NBA’s major talents.

Jackson was the professed basketball man here, and he happens to go down in history as one of the worst GMs in the league’s history. From signing Bryant “Big Country” Reeves to a $62-million extension to draftingSteve Francis when it was clear Francis would never play in Vancouver to trading the rights to the eventual No. 2 pick in the 2003 draft for Otis Thorpe, Jackson’s run as GM stands as one of the most inept ever.

Now, Jackson was engaged in the Hornets’ trade talks, helping peddle deals for one of the NBA’s franchise players.

Demps wanted the Lakers trade to lift the Hornets into the playoffs, wanted a team of talent and made an initial deal that included Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin,Goran Dragic and a draft pick. The Clippers had a young package on the table, but Demps believed it was important to win games, to sell tickets and get back to the playoffs again.

Demps had come from San Antonio, and he believed something strongly: He didn’t want a bad team. He wanted to win. He owed it to his talented young coach, Monty Williams, to the fans buying season tickets in a small market. He wanted to trade Paul and still make the playoffs. That’s considered a sin in this NBA, where small-market cap space and vague draft picks create an illusion of success in today’s bottom-line financial climate.

For Stern to get on a conference call and force Demps, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak and Rockets GM Daryl Morey to listen to him say, “Dell never thought the deal to be done,” is beyond disingenuous and insulting. Stern can say it, and Demps, the Lakers and Rockets can’t ever challenge him. Demps made the deal because no one had ever told him of the league’s mandate to receive young players and picks for Paul until after they killed the initial Lakers trade, league sources said.

It never mattered to Stern the hundreds of hours that those teams and the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacersinvested into deals that Stern wouldn’t have allowed anyway. All Stern ever cared about was freeing himself of lawsuit liability, keeping the NBA from another super-team perception with the Lakers and selling the Hornets for every final dollar. Everything else was someone else’s mess to clean up.

The NBA let the deal reach fruition, and then abruptly canceled it. It wouldn’t be long until Stern’s underlings started to pass word onto league personnel that Demps hadn’t been forthcoming to the league office on the Clippers offer, that he couldn’t be trusted, that the NBA had every right to take over the talks. If Demps wants to keep a job in the NBA, you’ll never hear him explain his side.

“Dell’s problem was that every time he forwarded something to the league office, he felt it got leaked within an hour,” said one friend of Demps. “That’s why I think he became more careful of that.”

The ripples of the NBA holding up the Paul trade have impacted teams beyond the Hornets. The Houston Rockets had worked for two full years to get into position to make a deal for an elite player like Pau Gasol.While the Rockets were stuck in this web, trade partners were falling off the board, committing to free agents and leaving the market. Had the Rockets been able to make the deal for Gasol, they would’ve had the space to sign Nene to the $67-million deal Denver gave him. Suddenly, the Rockets would’ve been a 50-, 55-victory team again and back in Western Conference contention. Now, they’re reeling.

Once the initial trade was canceled and the whispers out of New York began to damage Demps’ good name, teams soon became reluctant to deal with the non-decision maker of the process. The Hornets tried to revive the three-way trade with the Lakers and Rockets, but when the NBA contradicted what Demps told L.A. and Houston about what needed to change to complete the deal, those teams knew he had been rendered irrelevant.

“Once it was the NBA running things, it was no longer a negotiation process,” one official said. “It was a shakedown.”

The Hornets told trade partners it was likely they could accept the Rockets’ and Lakers’ packages with minimal changes: a first-round pick from the Lakers and minor assets from the Rockets, perhaps a second-round pick. As it turned out, the NBA demanded Kyle Lowry and Patrick Paterson be added to Houston’s offer. Now, the Rockets had been told five of their top six players were needed to get Gasol in a trade.

The Rockets would’ve walked anyway, but the Lakers beat them to it. One league official says owner Jerry Buss’ attitude basically was the NBA had gone too far, and he pulled his team out of the talks. Soon, the Lakers sent Lamar Odom to the Mavericks and it became clear: The NBA’s machinations and maneuvering had dramatically impacted the Western Conference’s balance of power.

In the end, Stern wouldn’t allow the NBA to walk away without claiming a victory. This is Stern’s NBA, where he’s always believed the end justifies the means. For 30 teams competing, that largely should be the case. Yet, this wasn’t the Hornets competing to make a deal. This was the league office forcing itself into the trade market, dictating NBA winners and losers and leaving too much carnage, too many questions, in its wake. Once the commissioner entered the fray, the embarrassment of losing was never an option.

The league insists this was a normal negotiation process, but it was nothing close. As an institution, it is easy to renege on a deal for a top-five player and seek out a better one because you never have to negotiate with these people again. That’s an unfair advantage for the NBA, and purely destructive for those left in the job in New Orleans.

For all the suspicions those inside and out of the league have about the motives and agendas of those running the NBA, this was an episode to turn the cynical downright despondent. You win, Clippers. You lose, Lakers and Rockets. You win Chris Paul, you lose Dell Demps. The NBA waved its wand, and everyone else lives with the consequences. This was wrong, and Gordon and Minnesota’s draft pick will never, ever make it right.

One minute, the Clippers wouldn’t budge on trading Gordon and the 2012 first-round pick, and the next, the deal was done. Across Stu Jackson’s desk, there passed the trade packages for Paul, and the so-called secret amnesty bids for Billups. Always a nice, tidy completion for Stern.

Perhaps no one will ever know the truth about how Chris Paul became a Clipper, about perhaps where the lines blurred between a negotiation and a shakedown. Nevertheless, the star point guard gets to throw lobs toBlake Griffin in Hollywood, Demps gets to repair his credibility in the draft lottery, the Lakers and Rockets get shafted and Stern and his unforgiving, unrelenting Olympic Tower gang reminds the NBA once again: Our league, our whims.

“Let’s not talk too much about how the sausage was made,” Stern said late Wednesday.

All these years, all the episodes, and something never changes: David Stern never wants that curtain pulled back.

—The Times’ Mike Bresnahan reports the Lakers were privately fuming over the Clippers landing Chris Paul.

—The Times’ T.J. Simers argues the Lakers are still better than the Clippers. But the Clippers may be more exciting.

—The Times’ Broderick Turner explains how the Clippers landed Paul.

—The Times’ Bill Dwyre argues the Clippers turned a corner as a franchise for landing Paul.

--The Times’ J.A. Adande belives the Clippers become a different franchise. 

—The Orange County Register’s Kevin Ding explains how the Paul trade eases Derek Fisher’s mind. 

—A panel of ESPN writers debate Lakers- and Clippers-related topics. 

—Fox Sports was there to capture the initial reaction from Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan when they learned the Clippers acquired Paul. 

—Sports Illustrated’s Zach Lowe argues the Clippers are contenders.

—ESPN Los Angeles’ Brian Kamenetzky wonders what the Lakers should do next after failing to acquire Paul. 

—ESPN Los Angeles’ Ramona Shelburne credits Griffin for the Clippers acquiring Paul. 

—Yahoo! Sports’ Marc Spears wonders if the Clippers are better than the Lakers. 

—The Daily News’ Elliott Teaford sizes up what Josh McRoberts could bring to the Lakers. 

Tweet of the Day: “Has anyone predicted the 2011-12 Lakers will be a lottery team yet? If not, I’d like to call dibs.” — sportsguy33 (ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons) 

Rick Friedman Reader Comment of the Day: “Bynum and Gasol is a VERY formidable front line to boast in your starting 5 line up. However, Gasol is turning 31 soon and relying on Bynum to play 70 to 80 games a year is a HUGE risk. I love Bynum’s game and attitude, don’t get me wrong. BUT we have a legit chance to bring the greatest center/athlete in the league to our team to play alongside Kobe.. and he’s only 26! ” — Brian Bubrick

—Mark Medina

NBA owners revealed themselves to be vindictive, onerous, agenda-driven and spectacularly petty Thursday night when they complained to the point that David Stern, in a completely gutless move by all involved, essentially vetoed a perfectly legitimate trade.

It’s a move that smells rotten 100 different ways, and the players have no stink in it. The owners and the people who run the league ought to be ashamed of themselves for being so foul as to big-foot a basketball swap that appears to, yes, help the Lakers, who would get Chris Paul, and still help the Hornets get something for him. Everybody and his mama knows Paul plans to leave New Orleans after the upcoming season.

Instead of letting the Hornets get on with their business and make the best deal possible so as to avoid the disaster of an unhappy superstar playing out a lame duck season (as was the case with the Nuggets and Carmelo Anthony last season), Stern has apparently vetoed a deal that would have sent Lamar Odom,Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragicand a draft pick to the Hornets, and Pau Gasol to center-desperate Houston.

The problem with the deal? It’d send another star to a big-market team, the Lakers, a trend the small-market owners had in their sights to stop during the recently concluded lockout. Small-market teams screamed bloody murder about stars migrating to big-market teams, as if this hasn’t been the case all the way back to, say, the mid-1970s, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar forced his way out of Milwaukee and to Los Angeles. The deal ratified just Thursday night was supposed to address those concerns.

But since the league re-opened for business, what have we had? Paul saying he wanted to go to New York to play for the Knicks, reports of the Lakers putting together a deal for Orlando’sDwight Howard, then Howard and/or Paul. It sure sounds like business as usual, NBA-style.

And the owners, probably a third of whom didn’t like the deal but voted for it anyway in order to not miss the entire season, whined and stomped their feet and made Stern make the deal go away. The owners apparently think the NBA can legislate where players go when they’re free agents or about to be free agents. See, Bryant Gumbel probably had it right when he talked about a plantation mentality at the top of the league, but perhaps he shouldn’t have confined his comments to Stern. Perhaps he should have been a lot broader and included some owners as well.

Unless the appeal filed by the teamsinvolved in Thursday’s proposed trade (or a lawsuit reportedly being considered by Paul) reverses the decision, the league now apparently will allow free agency only as long as enough players to its liking are willing to sign up to play in Portland, New Orleans, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, etc. You think Stern would have stopped this trade had Paul been dealt for essentially the same package to, oh, Indiana? Or Memphis? Or Oklahoma City? There isn’t a chance in hell.

But what stopping this trade does is prevent New Orleans from getting players who can help that small-market franchise not only recover, but move on. Odom is one of the most versatile frontcourt players in the NBA. Scola averaged 18 points and eight rebounds per game last season. Martin can get you 20 points a night. Dragic is a suitable backup. What’s wrong with this deal? Nothing, except the Lakers made it. This isn’t a heist; it’s a deal that’s easy to defend if you’re looking at it from the Hornets’ viewpoint. What’s more, executives from the Lakers and executives from the Hornets made it. Club officials.

Problem is, there are owners like Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert, still whining like a 2-year-old over the departure of LeBron James, who want some sort of guarantee that small-market teams will get their share of free agents.

Well, there aren’t any guarantees. The NBA, with the majority of its players being African-Americans from uber-urban areas, is and will likely always be a league dominated by big-city teams. Players gravitate toward them. Even players such as Paul, from a small town, dreamt of playing on the big stage. The best attempt to even things up, even a little bit, is the college draft, which is how teams such as San Antonio and Utah (and now Oklahoma City) got top players, and in their cases developed and held onto superstars.

We’re sure to hear about a conflict of interest, what with the Hornets being run by the league and dealing a great player to Los Angeles. So, it would be OK for the NBA to trade Paul to a dreadful team, say the Timberwolves? The NBA knew there could be the appearance of a conflict when it made the decision to run the Hornets. Why should Paul play in New Orleans indefinitely? Because management there was incompetent, which it was? Because the Knicks — talk about the pot calling the kettle black — don’t like the trade? Since when do owners not involved with a trade get to lobby against it? Where in the NBA rules does it say other clubs get to whine that the Lakers will be too good again? And who stands up to them and says, “Hey you MORONS, it’s quite possible the Hornets made a good deal here.”

If, as many suspect, owners are still angry because they didn’t think they got a good enough deal and they didn’t want to ratify something that didn’t do enough for small-market clubs, they should have had the guts to say no to the new CBA. But if, as a group, the owners accepted it, then they should have the decency to live with it, which is surely what the league and owners would tell the players.

What eats at many NBA owners is this: They aren’t NFL owners. They don’t share a big enough cut of the revenues. They don’t have an unending stream of television money. Their arenas aren’t at about 95 percent capacity. They aren’t a national obsession. And their small-market teams aren’t flush, in most cases, like the Packers or Steelers are. They can’t just cut players and get rid of their salaries, which aren’t guaranteed in the NFL. They want control, big control, like the NFL teams have and they don’t. They don’t want the LeBrons and D-Wades hooking up on their own terms.

And after a lockout that was supposed to drive this point home, they damn sure don’t want Chris Paul forcing his way out of New Orleans to go to New York or Los Angeles. Don’t these players understand why they were locked out all that time?

So where does the league go from here? Does the vetoing of the Paul trade mean big-city teams can’t deal with small-market teams anymore, unless a certain number of owners or Stern find the deal to their liking? Do players have to check their free-agent destinations with the league for approval? You can go to Orlando or Charlotte because they’re smaller and in need, but not the Lakers or Bulls or Celtics because, you know, they’ve got enough already in the way of assets.

None of this even deals with how in the world the teams involved are going to re-incorporate the players they just tried to deal away. It doesn’t even deal with another eventuality: Chris Paul is going to have to be traded somewhere. Would Stern like to tell him where he can sign for the next five years?

The NBA, from the commissioner’s office to a great many of its owners, is so envious of the NFL that it wants the same kind of parity. It wants its small markets to matter in the same way. But the fact is, the NBA’s popularity, its very brand, was successfully built, yes, on the participation of a lot of teams but on the brilliance of a few, notably the Lakers and Celtics. Parity might have been a worthy goal for Pete Rozelle and the NFL, but it has never amounted to a hill of beans for the NBA. Neither has some socialist-style spreading of wealth.

Make no mistake (and somebody ought to stand up in a room and shout this in the faces of the shortsighted owners who whined over this deal): It’s the Lakers and Celtics and the ability of their top executives to make deals decade after decade that not only have kept those franchises at the top of the pyramid but also allowed the NBA to matter as much as it has.

Michael Wilbon is a featured columnist for ESPN.com and ESPNChicago.com. He is the longtime co-host of “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN and appears on the “NBA Sunday Countdown” pregame show on ABC in addition to ESPN. Over the course of three decades with The Washington Post, Wilbon earned a reputation as one of the nation’s most respected sports journalists. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @RealMikeWilbon.

When Dell Demps was hired as the New Orleans Hornets general manager, his plane landed at the city’s airport in the summer of 2010, and he stepped into the terminal with his bags, folders and the thrill of running his own franchise. He walked into the gate area, peered toward a television and squinted his eyes to read the bottom scroll on the screen. Chris Paul(notes) wants a trade, it read.

“Welcome to New Orleans,” Demps would tell himself.

For everything he’s done to try to make Paul want to stay with the Hornets, Demps has always understood it was the most improbable resolution. The Hornets had no owner, no second star and no leverage to push back the momentum of other superstar players fleeing small markets for the bright lights, big city. The owners have made it more costly in the new collective bargaining talks for stars to leave, but the NBA can’t stop the magnet to the metropolises, and never will.

So Demps made the call on Wednesday to Paul’s agent, and there was no surprise: He was told that Paul wouldn’t be signing a new contract with the Hornets, that New York was his preferred destination and that ultimately a trade benefitted everyone. Orlando Magic GM Otis Smith is still awaiting confirmation from Dwight Howard(notes) that this will be Howard’s exit strategy, too. Demps never had a chance with Paul. The Hornets have payroll constraints, an archaic arena and literally no ownership. Smith had every chance: a committed owner, a league-high payroll and a sparking new arena.

In a lot of ways, the Hornets and Orlando Magic are in a race to make a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers for Paul and Howard. They’re running so many scenarios across the big boards in their offices, but make no mistake: Los Angeles is the port that can entice Paul and Howard to sign extensions, with the one player – young center Andrew Bynum(notes) – as a centerpiece that can justify the trade.

[ Video: Are Chris Paul and Dwight Howard on the move? ]

The Lakers and Hornets talked several days ago, league sources told Yahoo! Sports, but it was one of those circuitous conversations that left the sides unclear what it would take to get a deal done, and the talk ended with no formal offers. The Lakers and Hornets expect to speak again this week, sources said. The prospect of Pau Gasol(notes) as the primary player going to the Hornets won’t be acceptable, sources said. The Lakers will ultimately be willing to let New Orleans pick its player in the deal – Bynum or Gasol – but New Orleans is determined to get quality, and quantity, in a deal.

Bynum has privately been heard to say this offseason that he wants his own team, and the chances of him getting that – in New Orleans or Orlando – have never been higher. Years ago, Kobe Bryant(notes) wanted Bynum moved for Jason Kidd(notes), but Bryant’s been insistent all summer that he still believes in this core, isn’t interested in wholesale change.

Bryant isn’t anti-Dwight Howard, but he could see like everyone else: The Lakers need speed, athleticism and younger legs on the perimeter. Los Angeles could do little to stop Paul in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, and that’ll only became a deeper issue this season and beyond. Nevertheless, through trades they’ve made and not made, through the hiring of their new coach, the Lakers have made it clear they don’t go to Bryant for his blessing.

In a shortened season, significant change can be risky, but it’s hard to believe these Lakers don’t need some boldness to become champions again. The Lakers could still revisit Lamar Odom(notes) for Andre Iguodala(notes),which would give them a superior athletic wing presence to make defending easier for Bryant and Ron Artest(notes).

For now, it is Paul on the market. Howard’s on deck. The New Jersey Nets will have a package ofBrook Lopez(notes) and picks available for the Magic, enticing Howard with Deron Williams(notes) and a new Brooklyn arena to call his own. What’s more, the Chicago Bulls are still a sleeper for Howard, several league executives believe. “Chicago may tell Orlando to take any two players – or three – besides [Derrick] Rose,” one GM said. Howard isn’t keen on the cold weather, but the Bulls would have the best point guard-center combination since Magic and Kareem.

The Bulls have Omar Asik developing fast as a potential replacement for Joakim Noah(notes) should the Bulls include Noah in a package. Noah would have to be a part of it, but would a combination of Noah andLuol Deng(notes) or Carlos Boozer(notes) – bringing back Howard and one of those bad Orlando contracts – be enough? The Magic need a force to replace Howard, an anchor.

[ Related: Lakers consider signing Jason Kapono ]

The NBA and Players Association still haven’t signed the new labor agreement, and the league has still reset to where it was before the lockout. Another year, another hostage standoff. Feel free to gripe over the small markets losing star players, but the NBA has no one to blame but itself for Paul wanting to leave. He’s been immersed in that community, and desperately wanted it to work there. He’s a small-town North Carolina kid, but he’s been honest about it. New Orleans will make the deal that the Cleveland Cavaliers never had the notice to make for themselves.

During LeBron James’(notes) last season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cavs had incredible fear he would leave as a free agent. They had no choice but to privately discuss the possibility of getting an unprecedented package for trading him. Yet, it didn’t take long to internally decide that even if he did plan to leave, Cavs officials didn’t want to be remembered as the management team who traded LeBron James away.

Even if the Cavs had painfully accurate information on his plans to exit, they still couldn’t do it. After all, James could’ve simply said, “Hey, I was never going to leave. They traded me.” And he would’ve been out of harm’s way forever in Cleveland. Carmelo Anthony(notes) made the Denver Nuggets’ life miserable after his trade demand, because his bad practice and shooting habits became worse a year ago. That was a long four months in Denver, and the Nuggets couldn’t wait until he walked out the door to the Knicks.

With Paul, that won’t happen in New Orleans. The Hornets don’t want a long soap-opera season, and that’s why Demps won’t waste time trying to sell Paul on staying until the trade deadline. Paul will probably let Demps know his intentions face-to-face, possibly as soon as Monday, and the GM will be right back on the phone searching out a deal. It probably won’t be long until Howard makes himself completely clear too: Get me out, send me West.

In the end, the Magic and Hornets will be searching for teams that can satisfy Paul’s and Howard’s desire for a championship contender, and that list is painfully short when you consider those with the players and assets to fulfill the return on the trade. It won’t be New York, but 3,000 miles away, in Los Angeles, where the Lakers are forever searching for a twentysomething star to be the next in line, where the race to trade Chris Paul and Dwight Howard for a package centered around Andrew Bynum has all but officially started.