Gordon, Kaman Not Pleased With The Clippers

It looked like the Los Angeles Clippers had finally shed their image of being a cheap organization when they made the trade for Chris Paul. It was a big moment for the team and maybe a moment where the Clippers can finally sit at the big boy table.

Former Clippers Eric Gordon and Chris Kaman weren't too thrilled about the turn of events. They're happy to be members of the New Orleans Hornets, but felt they were misled by team management.


“All you do is take the man’s word and take that he said that no one is going to go anywhere,” Gordon told Yahoo! Sports. “… To completely lie like that is something unprofessional.”


Strong words calling a man a liar. But since there's more to the story which consists of two sides we'll keep going. Since it is the Clippers we're talking about, Gordon might not be too far off base.

“I’m not deceptive enough to look players in the eye and tell them something that is not true,”general manager Neil Olshey said. “And I can tell you from an ownership level, the president of our company, myself, we made a corporate decision Monday morning that when the deal didn’t go through on Sunday night we would no longer pursue the trade. And that’s when we notified our players, to get the elephant out of the room during our abbreviated training camp.”    


Gordon and Kaman felt deceived since Olshey and head coach Vinny Del Negro held a team meeting pledging to move forward after the initial Paul trade was rejected.

I can see how Gordon could've felt that he was deceived since Olshey and Del Negro pretty much said everything was going to remain status quo.

Said Gordon: “They literally told me as an organization that they wanted to keep me, and [the trade still] went down?”

Kaman found out the details through his real estate agent's son.

“He said, ‘Hey, you got traded.’ I was like, ‘C’mon,’ ” Kaman said. “Then everyone started talking to me like, ‘Hey, what happened?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ Then my agent wasn’t calling me. I couldn’t get ahold of him. Then Farouq talked to his agent and said it was done.

“The Clippers didn’t tell me anything. They didn’t tell me I was traded or nothing after eight years. They didn’t have the guts to come tell me they traded me.”  

I would like to say I feel sorry for them but I don't. They know the NBA is all about business. As difficult as it  is to defend the Clippers on any front, they were offered a good deal and took it. You can't blame them for that. Both seem happy with the trade and Kaman took a jab at the Clippers.

“They’re very professional,” Kaman said. “I’m not used to that. No, serious. It was an adjustment. After eight years [with the Clippers], I didn’t know it could be like this. I wasn’t used to it. The way they handle business … they’re up front with you and they tell you what’s going on and what’s going to happen.”  

Better than the way Donald Sterling has his puppets handling business.