re: Non-Pels Free Agency News and Rumors

Very good points, it’s clearly all about the money with the Lakers. It seems to me as if he’s waiting for either the Raptors to show he can make a bunch of money there, or for the Lakers to prove that they have the doctors, coaching, and trust worthiness. Clearly he’s not satisfied with the answers on those questions from any of the teams yet. I just wonder, if neither can give a satisfying answer, who wins out? Has to be the TOR, right?

Yep saw that. Iggy has value throughout the league. Great locker room guy, still plays good defense, and has championship experience.

Question is do the Pels trade for him to be on the team this year, or hold onto Moore & Miller to potentially use at the deadline?

If LAL miss on Kawhi, does LeBron sacrifice another young player in Kuzma to get Iggy?

Normally I would say there is no way they would be that dumb, but this team also thought it would be a good idea to put Stephenson, Javale, and Rondo on the same team last year

But there’s a lot of interest in Iggy. Would you do it if you had to give up a 1st?

At this point, I’d be happy with Dallas or Houston having him if it meant he wasn’t in LA.

He may be aging but he knows how to win. I think the only other vet winner likely to be on that roster, past LeBron, will be Rondo.

no I would not
and MEM needs to do the right thing and buy him out of that contract so he can go where he wants. They already got a pick for taking him, now they should do right by the player

y’all can laugh if you want but that shite matters.
iggy didn’t force his way out, he signed that deal in GSW to stay there.

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I honestly don’t know why kawhi is even considering them

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I do think that it was about money. But I also tend to think that Uncle Dennis is a lot more about the money than Kawhi is, and I think that Uncle Dennis wanted Kawhi to hear the Lakers out and Kawhi said OK. It was why, in the report about the meeting with the New Balance execs, Kawhi wasn't even there -- he isn't personally interested in merchandise sales.

The most interesting report this morning was that Kawhi isn't considering a 2-year deal. He's going to sign a 4-year max with someone. (This goes against the Jalen Rose story that he was going to do a 2-year deal with Toronto.)

I simply cannot imagine any way that Kawhi would sign a 4-year deal with the Lakers, as unstable as that franchise has been and with no idea of what that roster is going to look like. The Raptors and Clippers have excellent front offices and coaching staffs and both provide the kind of basketball environment that would allow him to flourish.

I heard a story on the radio this morning about the day that Nick Nurse first met Kawhi. Nurse was ready to talk about his basketball background, but Kawhi immediately picked up a marker and went to the whiteboard and started talking about plays, and they just started talking ball, without any small talk whatsoever.

It reminded me of an story I heard about John Stockton, who had a reticent personality not dissimilar to Kawhi's. I forget who it was, but it was a good player who had just been traded to the Jazz, and he recounted how he meets Stockton for the first time and Stockton doesn't even say hello -- he just says "Where do you like the ball?" (In other words, when I pass you the ball, where is the exact spot you prefer to catch it?) The guy uses his hands to show Stockton the spot, and Stockton thanks him and walks away.

I think Kawhi is like that -- he just cares about basketball, which means I think that there's no way that he chooses the Lakers. I thought more of the Clippers' chances until hearing this morning that Kawhi was originally going to have meetings with the Nets and Knicks, which told me that Kawhi wasn't desperate to "go home" to Los Angeles.

I keep coming back to the fact that Kawhi met with the Raptors execs in Toronto. There was no need for Kawhi to fly to Toronto to meet these guys in a hotel there -- they would absolutely have met with him in a hotel in Los Angeles. The fact that Kawhi is going to make this decision while he is in Toronto is telling.

I think that, if I were handicapping the race at this point, it would be 90% Raptors, 9% Clippers, and 1% Lakers.

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Frank Isola
@TheFrankIsola

From what I’m hearing Jalen Rose’s 99 percent that Kawhi is returning to Toronto now sounds like 99.9 percent.

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Frank Isola is a legit media guy too. This would make my 4th. Screw the Lakers

If he does it, I'd chalk it up to a mix of cluelessness and respect for Masai not to make him fly out to LA or get a phone call just to tell him bad news.

At the least, this isn't him telling Dan Gilbert he is leaving 10 minutes before he goes on national TV to announce his decision.

Nope, just throwing out a The Decision reference to how LeBron was a clueless a-hole.


He'd decided 2 years before he left that he was leaving and let Dan Gilbert swing in the wind up until right before he stuck the knife in on national TV.