And so we’ve reached that dreaded hour in every sports year: February. Too soon to talk March Madness but too late to reminisce about a truly fabulous Super Bowl that saved us from months of endless talk about the supposedly all-time greatness of the Patriots. So what’s a columnist to do in this most dreaded of months?

Luckily, sometimes material presents itself.

After the Los Angeles Lakers’ stunning trade of Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol, an eyebrow has finally been officially raised regarding the perceived lopsidedness of the deal in the Lakers’ favor. Yes, some draft picks and extra pieces went Memphis’ way in that deal, but for now, it’s basically Brown for Gasol, period. And San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich isn’t buying that it was fair, for one minute.

“What they did in Memphis is beyond comprehension,” Popovich was quoted by SI.com. “There should be a trade committee that can scratch all trades that make no sense. I just wish I had been on a trade committee that oversees NBA trades. I would have voted no to that LA trade.”

Like I said, sometimes it presents itself. Thank you, Mr. Popovich — I mean, it’s like he knew that we needed something to talk about.

First, let’s just consider for a minute that Popovich’s claim could be more than just jealousy and fear that another power has suddenly arisen in the Western Conference to compete with his Spurs. That’s hard to do, of course, because a Lakers squad led by Kobe Bryant, Gasol, a healthy Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom makes for a truly dangerous team. Indeed, the Lakers, once again, are in serous contention for a title, and with their new young core, could be for some time.

But as good as the trade was for the Lakers, it’s hard to look at it from the perspective of the Memphis Grizzlies and think that it was the best they could do for a player of Gasol’s caliber. And in a vacuum, maybe you think, “Okay, dumb trade, but so what? Those have happened before and will happen again.” But it didn’t happen in a vacuum, it happened between a pair of teams linked in that they both share a former General Manager, Jerry West. Just like the momentous trade of the offseason which sent Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics was probably facilitated by the presence of Kevin McHale in the GM seat for the Timberwolves — who may have been trying to help his old team — the motives behind this trade can be traced to the former Lakers general manager.

The point isn’t that something definitely nefarious occurred in either of these cases — it’s that there’s really no way to prove it didn’t. It seemed the Timberwolves and Grizzlies should both have been able to get more in return for their respective superstars, but we don’t know if there were actually better offers on the table. In that sense, maybe Popovich is right. A forum in which all trade proposals were made public and reviewable by the league could prevent the sense that something is rotten in Denmark... or Minnesota or Memphis, as the case may be.

But perhaps most importantly, such a forum for coaches and league executives to complain about trades they don’t like would be an endless source of amusement to us, the fans of the NBA. Consider the entertainment factor of a coach like Popovich trying to explain why, exactly, he’s so against the Gasol trade. That is a discussion which, if he’s honest, would start and end with the fact that Gasol seriously jeopardizes his team’s chances of repeating as NBA champions.

But, long story short, it’s not going to happen. Why? Because while the NFL may have earned its well deserved moniker of the “No Fun League,” the NBA isn’t too far behind. And while it would be great for the fans of every team to have a more transparent view of the trade discussions that currently go on behind the scenes, anything that makes his league look more like the joke it sometimes can be (hello Suns-Spurs playoff series of 2007!) will never be okayed by the incredibly image-over-substance David Stern.

So sorry, Pop, it looks like Gasol is real, and so are the Lakers. Even though it would be a whole lot more interesting if we knew what really happened.