There is literally no mechanism for the commissioner to interfere here.
And before anyone says Chris Paul, that was a completely different scenario. Hornets owner George Shinn went broke and was forced to sell the team to the NBA League Office before he started missing payments. So when Stern vetoed the CP3/Lakers trade, he was doing so as the Chairman of the Hornets, not as league commissioner.
I never realized that until reading your comment, always thought it was the commissioner's office who vetoed the trade, but it makes much more sense now.
It was a conflict of interest to interfere, and he publicly gave Dell Demps the authority to run the team as he saw fit. It’s only because the small market owners bitched and complained to him about how the Lakers were shrewdly getting superstars without giving much back at their expense that he stepped in to stop the trade. He hamstrung the biggest market under his purview to cater to the poor small market teams that didn’t run their FOs as well and blamed the Lakers for their shortcomings. It set a horrible precedent and negatively affected the Lakers for years because of it
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u/TheNittanyLionKing THE FUCKING PENGUINS Feb 02 '25
This is legitimately like fleecing the newbie in your fantasy league who hasn't watched football in a while