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DeMar DeRozan's botched trade to the Los Angeles Lakers last summer has been the talk of the town of late after Magic Johnson revealed how he basically gave the former San Antonio Spurs star to LA on a silver platter only for LeBron James and the front office to turn him down in favor of Russell Westbrook.
ESPN's top insiders have now chimed in on Johnson's comments and this whole DeRozan to the Lakers situation. In a recent episode of the Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective podcast, Windhorst brought up a very interesting tidbit about how San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich may have played a crucial role in DeRozan's botched move to LA:
“From what I am told, San Antonio was interested in making a deal,” Windhorst said. “But what they wanted and what the Lakers may have wanted may not have — it never got to that point. As you know, Pop doesn’t like the Lakers. I don’t think he was going to make it easy. But I do think San Antonio would have done business.”
As we all know, DeRozan eventually landed with the Chicago Bulls via a sign-and-trade. According to Magic Johnson, the Lakers could have made that same deal with the Spurs. What Windhorst is saying here, however, is that even if LA decided to go for DeMar over Westbrook, that coach Popovich would have probably nixed that transaction. Not only does Pop dislike the Lakers, but he knew that sending DeRozan to a team in the same conference could have had major implications on his Spurs.
Bobby Marks, another one of ESPN's front office insiders, echoed his colleague's insights. According to Marks, he too believes that the Lakers would have been hard-pressed into making a deal work with the Spurs:
“I have a hard time believing that San Antonio was going to cooperate with the Lakers on a sign-and-trade,” Marks said.
Both Windhorst and Marks appear to be going against the notion that the Lakers could have signed DeRozan easily if they wanted to. According to these experts, the Spurs would have probably given them a hard time, with Gregg Popovich potentially playing a pivotal role in the negotiations.
The third insider in the panel was Ohm Youngmisuk, who himself provided more insight on Magic Johnson's role in all this. According to the ESPN analyst, Johnson's statement has legs simply because of the fact that the Lakers icon is very close to DeRozan's sports agent:
“Magic has a long-time relationship with DeMar DeRozan's agent, Aaron Goodwin,” Youngmisuk said. “They go back over two decades. They are very tight… But basically, Magic saying, ‘Well, I brought them DeMar DeRozan and they could have had DeMar DeRozan. And then whatever happened, it didn't work out, they ended up with Russell Westbrook.'”
It was no secret that DeRozan wanted to go home to LA. He probably believed that the Lakers wanted him, too. In the end, though, the deal fell apart and now with the benefit of hindsight, it appears that a move to Chicago was the best option for him anyway. Nevertheless, it seems that DeMar still holds a bit of a grudge against the Lakers:
“I talked to someone from DeRozan's camp when DeRozan was in town in LA, and he basically stuck it to the Lakers,” Youngmisuk said. “The impression that I got from his camp was that DeRozan felt that the Lakers were sort of in disarray. They didn't really have a vision. They didn't know what they were doing.”
