The thing is that Gilbert is technically an owner of the Hornets so he is fully within his rights to play the "veto" card, just like any other owner. By the book, there are 29 owners of the New Orleans Hornets right now so any owner, whether it is Cuban, Arison, Gilbert, Allen, Jordan etc..., are allowed to veto the trade. That is why it was such an awful decision to make the Hornets a league owned team. If you have a single owner, this trade likely goes through (unless Stern really wants to ruin any credibility he has left, which is already very little). However, since the owners of the other 29 teams get an equal say, you know that they are going to shoot down the trade since they don't care about what is best for the Hornets, they care about what is best for their teams. Paul going to LA to join forces with Kobe and Bynum (or later Howard as most everybody expected) is not good for their teams so they are going to pull the veto card. It sucks and makes the league look terrible, but they are well within their rights to do what they did tonight. Luckily for the NBA that the players have voted on the new CBA already (they all have, right?), otherwise I could easily see this resulting in them continuing the lockout and wiping out not only this season, but future ones as well.