According to reports Kevin Durant will schedule meetings with the Heat, Clippers, Spurs, Celtics, Warriors and of course the Thunder. See who’s missing? The Los Angeles Lakers.
Once a prime time destination, Kevin Durant doesn’t even have a meeting scheduled with them and some people within the Laker organization find that hard to be true.
A source within the Lakers organization told Chris Broussard
“I can’t imagine Durant wouldn’t talk to us,” the source said. “That would shock me.”
To be honest, it would be shocking to not even take a meeting because you could at least check out what the Lakers are trying to do. Also, what’s a trip to LA and getting wined and dined by the Lakers going to do?
The source gives some insight as to how they’re positioning themselves in free agency by saying,
“We want to pitch guys on combinations, as opposed to just one guy,” the source said. “We’ll say to a guy, ‘Who do you want to play with? We’ve got the room to go get him.'”
Pitching on the hope that you’ll get other free agents is risky. The NBA is a fraternity and I’m sure if guys wanted to team up or have thought about doing so are probably waiting for the right time in terms of their contracts.
The good thing is that the Lakers are pretty flexible here and it’s good that they have options. They have a very slim shot at getting KD unless Durant spoke to Westbrook about free agency and Westbrook mentioned that LA isn’t out of the picture.
Other free agents the Lakers are pursuing include Al Horford and Hassan Whiteside. They have a better shot at getting one of these two, most likely Horford.
The Lakers don’t necessarily need a big free agent acquisition anyway. They have a good young team with a really good head coach. They have a bright future and they shouldn’t rush the process by focusing on getting a superstar when they’re building quite nicely.