It looked as though Devean George was going to be the one who made the Dallas/Nets trade fall apart. But it appears the league also didn’t take to kindly to Jerry Stackhouse’s assertion that he would be back in Dallas after the Nets released him. Seems David Stern doesn’t like it when a team tries to work around rules. Hmmm, Joe Smith? In any event, here are the words from the ESPN.com story:

“I get 30 days to rest, then I’ll be right back,” Stackhouse told The Associated Press on Wednesday in response to the proposed trade. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

Stackhouse is referring to the widely reported assumption that New Jersey would immediately buy him out of his contract, which would allow him to re-sign with another team. Stackhouse’s preference is to return to Dallas, but according to league rules he’d have to wait at least 30 days. The 30-day rule was added to the league’s collective bargaining agreement as a response to a trade between Boston and Atlanta in 2005. In that deal, Boston sent Gary Payton to Atlanta to reacquire Antoine Walker with the understanding that the Hawks would immediately waive Payton, who then re-signed with Boston three days later.

The league frowned on this move, and instituted the 30-day rule. By flouting the rule so publicly, Stackhouse may have given the league no choice but to eliminate him from the deal or prevent the Mavericks from re-signing him. “If Stackhouse had kept quiet, the league wouldn’t have been able to prove anything,” one Western Conference executive said. “Now, it’s obvious that he talked to Mark Cuban about coming back to the Mavericks.”

A similar thing happened to us once, preventing us from landing a major role (can’t say which one) on the CBS sitcom “Designing Women.” Trust us, it would have been a lot different. C’est la vie.

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