Brooklyn Nets Talk Trade With Los Angeles Lakers Pre-Lopez Injury

[box]

In another twist to the Brooklyn Nets “titanic” season it comes out that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Nets were recently engaged in talks to swap Brook Lopez for Pau Gasol.

The talks did not go very far and the Lakers were rebuffed. This was prior to Lopez getting hurt again but it still makes you wonder what Billy King was thinking here.

This news does not come as a surprise for many as King is a wheeler and dealer and if he thought Gasol would fit better with this group then why not explore the option.

Marc Stein of ESPN details the conversation:

1. Sources with knowledge of the discussions told ESPN.com that the Lakers did indeed engage the Nets earlier this month in some exploratory talks to see if Brooklyn had interest in such a swap. Sources say that the Nets balked at the idea when it was presented before Lopez’s injury, but it’s still noteworthy if it happened.

2. The Lakers were known to be, at the very least, calling around to gauge Gasol’s value before they decided to pull Pau off the market earlier this month. So determining how serious the Lakers really were with their Lopez interest is tricky … especially since Lopez’s health misfortune extinguishes any realistic hope of Pau-for-Brook talks re-igniting between now and the Feb. 20 trade deadline. Yet the mere concept of Gasol and Lopez exchanging jerseys nonetheless gets you thinking, because Lopez is owed $32.5 million over the next two seasons after this one.

[/box]