Marc Stein of ESPN.com is reporting that the Brooklyn Nets actually rejected and turned down a straight up swap of Brook Lopez for the Lakers Pau Gasol.
Stein says that the Lakers had some “exploratory” talks with the Nets about trading Gasol for Lopez, which the Nets rejected.
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
Good for the Nets who simply didn’t want to get Fleeced by the Lakers. Gasol is extremely talented yes, but he’s also 8 years older than Lopez.
