I have to start off with a disclaimer. “I have no idea what went on behind the scene.” I all can based my opinions on is what has been said by all parties involved.
Chris Paul sure he’s slowly making his way onto the most hated man in New Orleans list (after all love and hate are so closely linked),but there’s no denying his talents. Some would even say his presense saved basketball in the Big Easy. If what he says is true and he just wants to win, then Demps has failed us as a fan base. Once again it’s not far fetched that Chris may have went to Demps and said “I want a big market”. If this is the case then trading him was unavoidable and I apologive to Mr. Demps. However all we’ve heard from Paul is he wants to win he doesn’t care where.
Let’s say that as a fan of a small market team(on the verge of giving up on the NBA altogether) I wasn’t thrilled about the new CBA. Let’s face it competitive balance took a back seat to the owners cash grab. However some door were open to a team in our position that need to get good and quickly. 1st most teams aren’t going into the luxury anymore. 2nd many talented guys would be hitting the bidding market due to the amnesty rule.
I was foolish enough to think A) CP3 heart was with the city and goal was truly just to win and B) that Demps would exhaust every option before attempting to trade Paul away. This league revolves around difference makers. I believe we had a top 3 difference maker. Plan A should have been to use any avenue to get Chris the talent he deserved. This is where great GM’s are supposed to thrive, but instead plan A, B, and C all included trading Paul away without any kind of fight. Waving the white flag before the battle had even started.
Some people would love to point out the lack of appeal a city/market like New Orleans has. They’ll also point out the wasted years CP had with cheap ownership and bad front office moves. For the finisher they would point out the fact that we are owned by the league. Everylast one of those things would be correct, except for the front office isn’t the same poor decision makers. Demps was only hired last year. We didn’t(still don’t) have a ton of asset, but we had ton of roster spots and adequate cap space for Demps to show off his genius and the right FA’s and make the right trades to surround Paul with enough to show him we mean buisness.
It would have been the long shots of long shots, but isn’t that what he gets paid the BIG bucks for? Remember Kobe crying about how bad his team was? Did the Lakers trade him nope they made the necessary trades to get him the talent he needed. However questionable the trade. That team had no assets yet managed to get it done. Why difference makers don’t grow on trees. We could get the number 1 overall pick for the next 5 years and still never acquire a players as good as Paul. Yet names like Dragic and Bledsoe are expected to replace him without having fought tooth and nail to keep him here.
I don’t know what Mr. Demps is capable of as a GM, but much like the driving instructorthat notice you have failed to secure your safety belt and promptly fails you before the test even starts. I have to give any GM a big fat F- for attempting to trade away a once in a generation player without using that great willing and dealing talent (assuming he has some) to keep said player first. Ofcourse unless Paul said he wanted only a big market(and even then I would be hard press to trade him).
21 responses to “Disappointed in Dell Demps.”
Dude get over it. Paul was leaving anyway. It’s just the way it is. If we get Gordon, Kaman, Aminu, and that high first round pick from Minnesota, then we got a steal. If somehow Bledsoe is included, then we come out on top. You talk about difference makers? Best way to get one of those, have a top pick in a loaded draft, like this one. If you get a top tier talent to plug in next to Gordon, aminu, Ariza, Okafor, etc. and you are sitting pretty for a long long time. Not to mention we have free agency dollars left to make more additions. Dell did the best he could do in a difficult situation.
This isn’t really personal it’s about what’s best for the franchise. This league is star driven. The Lakers deal left us star-less. This Clippers’ deal is better, but still leaves us star-less.
@David, I agree. We forget that CP is human. If he wants to live and play somewhere else, HE WILL. We can’t stop him as fans. We just have to live with it and hope our HORNETS will remain competitive. It never makes sense to get attached to these players. The only things the fans and ticket holders should worry about is the Wins-Loss column!
Demps is doing the best job he can with the situation he was given. I was down on him on the Lakers/Rockets trade, but i understood where he was coming from.
To compare the Kobe/Lakers situation to the CP3/Hornets situation is a complete ignorance of the difference between the two. Lakers had the history, the money and the glamour that came with the brand. Plus, Lakers have all this connections. You think Bynum would have gotten the tutelage from Abdul Jabbar had he not been a Laker? You think the Jerry West connection did not help the Pau Gasol for poop trade?
We as a franchise should rise above the situation. As fans, we expect nothing but the best, moreso if you are a STH. but there comes a time when rationality and reality do not coincide. What seems to be rational seem impossible and what seems to be possible seems to be irrational. That is when we truly judge the GM, in our case Demps, if he’s doing his best. Does he make the impossible possible or does he make the irrational rational? Demps chose the irrational one and tried to make it rational (by coming up with more trades for youth). We must understand that fans more often than not, gravitate to wins. and its no secret – teams that are perennial playoff contenders always have 10K STH. With the situation the Hornets are in(just having reached 10K STH), does it not stand to reason that they are expecting wins? They are expecting wins because CP3 is here. but fact of the matter is, we don’t have the glamour, the history, the money (due to no ownership) to pull of a Kobe/Lakers.
Now Demps has gone for the rational but impossible – and most people are suddenly praising him for the choice. but do remember that what should be most important to us(the fans) is that there is basketball in new orleans, getting a winning team would just be secondary. if we are guaranteed that 2~3 straight losing seasons will not make the fan base go sour and then i’m fine with the impossible route. However due to the nature of the Hornets situation, we are required by geography to reload quick, and fast. And the new Clippers trade (w/ or w/o Gordon, moreso with Gordon) is the fastest way to reload.
Be patient with Demps, be frustrated at him, but don’t be disappointed. there’s a slight, but very real difference.
u r so wrong
you made a post to look like you are intelligent? bad move coz you really dont know what you are talking about. lol, i think you are a Du*bas*. :))
No need for all that. Tell him how to improve. It’s hard writing for public consumption.
You seem to know nothing about what you’re talking about in the least bit. The amnesty rule hasn’t yielded much of anything. Demps has had his hands tied more than you seem to realize because the team is owned by the league. Chris Paul just wants to be on a good team in a big market, which is why he is willing to go to the clippers who have a terrible owner. If this same Hornets team was in a big market, then he would be happier with the situation. The point is that the best players are all aiming for bigger markets where there are more opportunities to make money outside of their basketball contract. Other players are also more likely to sign on with paul in a big market team than a small market team as well, so that will by itself help him to be on a better team than what he would have in New Orleans. I’m a huge fan of Chris Paul and would hate to see him leave but its just the nature of how things are going in the NBA now.
A few points.
1. Dell Demps walked into a crappy situation. Bower and Shinn supplied Paul with over-rated, past their prime, or simply inadequate talent to work with.
2. Demps did well in his first year. You can’t really name anyone we could have gotten(reasonably) that would have turned us into a prime contender. Which was Pauls wish.
3. You make an error when you say he had “adequate” cap space. If I remember correctly we spent most of the year right at the cap line.
4. You want stars. Ok. Lets break it down for you. Yes, Paul is a star. And yes, neither of the trades gives us a star. But what this Clipper trade gives us is a potential star. Gordon, Bledsoe, and/or Aminu could develop into stars. But that isn’t what I’m getting at. The other first round pick(which could be really high depending on Mins improvement this year) gives us another shot on top of our own pick to land a STUD in next years LOADED draft. And quite frankly, that is probably the best we can do for Paul. No team is gonna trade their star player for ours.
And the alternative to any of this, is letting CP3 walk for nothing at the end of the year. FOR NOTHING! This atleast gives us potential.
You are simply upset with the wrong person. For you to expect Demps to fix the mistakes of his predecessors in just one season is ludicrous. If Dell had been here for three years or more, then you would have every right to be upset with him. But in this instance, you simply can’t be. Dell deserves better than that. Dell deserves a chance to show us what he can do with a chance to build a team himself with or without Cp3 before we pass judgement on him.
You are sadly misinformed. And you should do your part to become better informed in the future before you publicly rant.
Don’t get me wrong, you can publicly rant all you want. But the more in-depth info you have and the more valid points you have, the better you look to others. And people who have different opinions than you are more likely to consider your argument as well.
This “journal” simply makes you look silly and misinformed.
Expand your fanship. Grasp a better understanding.
Just a friendly suggestion.
I’m not upset at any one.
I think Demps seems like a really bright guy. However in basketball the impact of one individual weights more than any team sport that I’m aware of. When you have one of hte best in the game your IMO your focus should be 1st on keeping him. Demps seem to wash his hands of the situation without trying to repair it first. Once again maybe he knew it was irreconcilable and that’s why he’s choosing to part ways so quickly. I had faith that Demps woulld have tried his best to bring in and/or retain players he thought could at least convinced Paul to opt in next year like he’s willing to do for the Clippers.
For whatever reason he had his mind made up out of the gates to move on from Paul without even trying to build around him. That IMO is the wrong move. I could easily be wrong an the deal with the Clippers could have us title bound 3-4years from now. I’m not buying it though.
You have no idea what you are talking about. If they could signed paul, they would done so by now. But Paul doesnt want to stay, neither does david west. That why he left. And the team does not have an owner. Teams dont want to deal with NO, when it can be rejected cause the league doesn’t like it. What can Demps do? He tries to make a solid getting martin and scola and odom. Better than what denver got. But it was rejected. You know nothing about the nba, all you can do is whine. Do you wonder why, no one has offer a job as a gm? Cause you can’t do any better, and have to resort to posting these retarded blog post.
Your insane, unrealistic opinions about this situation aside, how much did you have to pay the 4th grader who it appears you had proof read this?
Settle down
Dude.. run a freaking spell check next time you post an article
C’mon now.
That has been been pointed out. Dude’s noted it.
I’m glad we all have a way to express how we feel when we are feeling it, and I’m glad someone chose to do it. In time, thr journalists will improve, and we should support that, not retard the process.
Tell him ge’s wrong and why. Let the rest take care if itself.
I think I did a sufficient job accomplishing that lol
Just so everybody know the server wouldn’t let me edit the piece. Every time I would try to type a letter or space something it would delete the very next character. I wasn’t about to rewrite the entire journal.
To anybody who thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about. The commissioner who had already said he would be hands off had to go back on his statement to veto the Lakers/Rockets deal and make the demands in the Clippers deal. There are several articles explaining farther why these deals are they were hurt the Hornets.
Technically, Jac Sterling is vetoing the trades. Stern appointed him chairman. And they have stayed hands off until the CP3 trade. They only jumped in to make sure that the Hornets get a good package back and to be sure that we get the best offer back. They don’t want CP3 forcing his way to his own big 3.
Also, take a look at this Grantland story that L_Reazy pointed out
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7348176/the-eighth-day-nba-christmas
“Just so everybody know the server wouldn’t let me edit the piece. Every time I would try to type a letter or space something it would delete the very next character. I wasn’t about to rewrite the entire journal.”
Umm…that doesn’t seem to be a “server” issue, sounds like you had inadvertently press the “insert” button your keyboard, it is usually located on below/above/around the “delete” key.
Besides the “fat finger” issue, you failed to mention that CP3 made it clear 18 months ago he would leave as a free agent, unless traded of course. And what stings worst is that even Phil Jackson saw this coming when the NBA took over NO last December. He knew that the leagues would have a hell of a time trying to make a nonjudgmental decision that wouldn’t upset the league’s bosses…the other 29 owners. The league had to plead to Demps not to resign after they cut his legs from under him by rejecting the Lakers deal, and they only did this to save face more than anything as the backlash and bad press would be that much worse for the league if Demps resigned.
you gotta fix them typo’s bro.. this shit looks like it was written by a 5 year old lol