The Lie That is David Stern....

Getty Images: Chris from the blog shows his
displeasure with his current Knicks team as Godson looks on.


http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100224 (this is a great read)



I simply posted the link on this because it is too long too post, but it is a great read and something I have been saying for years. Stern wants to whine and complain his way into a lockout instead of pointing fingers at the real culprits for the NBA's money issues: the terrible GMs we have in this league.  From the new CBA, to the high school draft rule, everything this clown has done has been to protect GMs and make up for their horrible mistakes. All he has ever done was put rules in place to protect GMs from themselves. One team in particular I have been saying has been making stupid mistakes for years, the Wiz, Simmons uses them as an example. He basically said the same things I said when the Wiz gave Arenas that stupid 100mill contract and Jamison that horrible extension:

"For instance, let's say you root for the Wizards like my buddy House. Over the last two years, House watched his team overpay Arenas ($111 million; nobody else could have offered more than $85 million at the time) and Antawn Jamison (a $41 million extension for someone about to reach his mid-30s) in a bizarre attempt to keep together the nucleus of a noncontender. Those contracts forced the Wiz to package the No. 5 pick in the 2009 draft, along with a couple of lousy contracts, for immediate help (Randy Foye and Mike Miller). When that move backfired and Arenas went child actor on us, the team called an audible and dealt three of its four best players (Jamison, Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood) for expiring contracts and the No. 30 pick in the 2010 draft.
Three unintentionally funny outcomes here. First, Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld was the one who overpaid everybody, then had to sacrifice Butler and a 2009 lottery pick just to undo his own horrendous mistakes. Basically, he created the same cap space that could have been attained two summers ago, only Washington fans lost a lottery pick in the process. Did he get fired for this? Of course not.

Second, the Wizards will have a ton of cap space this summer, only this summer's top free agents won't be saying, "Man, I'd love to play on a young team that's built around Gilbert Arenas." So it's a flawed business plan coming out of the gate. The Wizards shouldn't even mention the words "cap space" to their fans again. It's like promising your kids an ice cream at the end of a long drive when you know there's nothing in the fridge.
Third, they actually tried to sell their fans that one benefit of the Jamison trade was dipping the Wizards under the luxury tax threshold. As House hissed afterward, "What the [bleep] do I care if the Wiz aren't paying the tax? How does that affect me? Does that mean they're lowering ticket prices for the rest of the year then?"
Nope. Over the past five years, half the league's franchises crapped on their season-ticket holders at least once with mismanagement, salary dumping and/or tanking for lottery picks. Along with the Wizards, the following fan bases have reached a breaking point with their respective teams: Sixers, Pistons, Pacers, Nets, Knicks, Suns, Clippers, Warriors and Timberwolves. Depending on how the summer of 2010 works out, we could be adding Cavs, Heat, Raptors, Hawks and/or Grizzlies fans to that list. And four other teams have tried to put out a quality product but still hemorrhaged money this season: New Orleans, Milwaukee, Charlotte and San Antonio.
(Yes, I just mentioned 19 of the 30 NBA teams. You counted correctly.)"


Basically imo, the players , fans and agents all are about to suffer for the stupidity of these horrible GM's and the owners who refuse to fire them. Anybody disagree?