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Last Thursday it looked like guard Chris Paul was headed to the Los Angeles Lakers to join forces with guard Kobe Bryant. However a couple hours later the trade would be vetoed by Commissioner David Stern. The trade consisted of three teams; the Lakers, New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets. The Lakers of course were getting Chris Paul but the Rockets were getting former Laker forward Pau Gasol and then the Hornets were getting former Rocket guard Kevin Martin, former Rocket Forward Luis Scola, former Laker forward Lamar Odom, and a Houston Rockets first round draft pick.

Though after the trade broke ground and the media started broadcasting the news NBA owners including one Cleveland’s owner Dan Gilbert responded. Dan Gilbert emailed Stern saying “Commissioner,

It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.

This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.

Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. That $21 million goes to non-taxpaying teams and to fund revenue sharing.

I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn’t appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard. (They would also get a large trade exception that would help them improve their team and/or eventually trade for Howard.) When the Lakers got Pau Gasol (at the time considered an extremely lopsided trade) they took on tens of millions in additional salary and luxury tax and they gave up a number of prospects (one in Marc Gasol who may become a max-salary player).

I just don’t see how we can allow this trade to happen.

I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.

When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?

Please advise…

Dan G.”

After emailing the Commissioner, Stern responded by vetoing the trade. When news then broke of Stern’s decision to veto it caused an uproar as media outlets, players, and fans responded.

As a result to the veto Paul threatened to take the NBA to court as he planned on suing them. As for the other players involved, Scola and Martin went to training camp as well Gasol went to the Lakers camp, but Lamar Odom refused. Due to being “traded” Odom felt disgusted and demanded a trade. The Lakers would respect Odom’s wishes and trade him to the Dallas Mavericks for $8.9 million trade exception, as well as a protected first-round pick.

It seemed as if trading for Paul was almost impossible at that point until the Los Angeles Clippers got involved. The Clippers and Hornets would agree on a trade that would send guard Eric Gordon, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, center Chris Kaman, and Minnesota’s unprotected first round pick in exchange for Chris Paul. Though, the deal was that the Hornets had to choose either Gordon or the draft pick. However it wouldn’t matter as Stern put an end to the trade once again.

Trading for Paul appeared to really be dead at that point as two trades were accepted and they were both vetoed. It started to seem like the league and Stern almost wanted to force Paul to stay in New Orleans as long as they could, until Wednesday night when another offer would be accepted; Chris Paul and two future second round picks for guard Eric Gordon, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, center Chris Kaman, and Minnesota’s unprotected first round pick.

Though no one believed it just yet until the approval of Stern was confirmed. After being approved by Stern it was official, Chris Paul was going to the Clippers.

The NBA has been in a lockout since July 1^st and since going into a lockout there hasn’t been much word of what has been going on. Matter of fact there hasn’t been that much going on at all as both sides met just twice in July. However as the NBA season is approaching and deadlines have to be met the players and the owners have been working “overtime.”

Both sides met for five and a half hours on Wednesday and will meet again on Thursday but again nothing was really said.

“We agreed that we’re going to sit here for as many days as we can to see whether we can make progress, but we agreed not to characterize anything at all,” commissioner David Stern said.

That’s all the commissioner had to say after the five and a half hour meeting; just a couple words. Now there have been rumors by many different sources saying that there will be a season and there have been many rumors by other different sources that there won’t be a season. Believe what you want but that’s thing, no one really knows because the players and owners haven’t said anything…yet.

After the meeting ended on Wednesday New York Knicks guard Roger Mason Jr. an NBA Union representative tweeted “Looking like a season. How U.” Mason would later tweet about 30 minutes later, “Someone just hacked my account. I did not say its looking like a season!”

Now let’s be honest here, who would really hack Roger Mason’s Twitter account? No one would…because it’s just Roger Mason Jr. it’s not like he’s Kobe Bryant or something. Another thing is to; Mason wouldn’t have gotten his account back that fast after he found out that it was hacked.

Remember when Paul Pierce’s twitter was hacked? He didn’t get it back in 30 minutes, and that’s Paul Pierce. So this story doesn’t really fit. What really happened was, the meeting probably went really well and owners and players probably came to a bunch of agreements and then it ended. And Mason then posted his tweet out of joy, but then remembered that they weren’t supposed to talk about so therefore to make it look like he didn’t say it, he covered it up by saying that he was hacked.

Now it’s not the real story because no one knows what really happened only Mason does and what he said was that it was a hacker…which doesn’t seem believable but maybe for some odd reason it was…very doubtful but you never know.

So take “his” tweet in anyway; either from his story, my story, or anyway, but that’s what happened. There hasn’t been any news of the NBA reaching an agreement only that the talks are going good. They’ll go at it again on Thursday so keep a twitter tab open and constantly refresh just incase someone gets “hacked” again.