Stern Oddly Content Playing Bennett's Fool - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

David Stern usually has no problem embracing the role of "hard ass." (In fact, it seems like he actually enjoys it.) And yet, when Clay Bennett was forced to turn over emails that revealed he and his ownership team flat-out lied to Stern's face about not planning on moving the team to Oklahoma City all along, Stern oddly decided to roll over and let Clay and his buddies escape public humiliation:

"I haven't studied them but my sense of it was that Clay, as the managing partner and the driving force of the group, was operating in good faith under the agreement that had been made with [previous owner] Howard Schultz," Stern said on a conference call Monday. "His straight and narrow path may not have been shared by all of his partners in their views, but Clay was the one that was making policy for the partnership."

He hasn't studied them? I'm calling b.s. You can tell that Stern prides himself on being the smartest man in the room, so why is he willing to feign ignorance on one of the hottest hot button topics to come up in his league? My guess is that since he's already made up his mind to endorse the move he's hoping to keep as much talk about it out of the news cycles as possible, and doing something drastic like fining Bennett's ownership group (again) would distract from the upcoming playoffs.