(WOJ) Westbrook & GEORGE... almost went to the raptors

Kawhi was leaving no matter what. Now if Kawhi could have been convinced to stay, I'm sure its a no brainer to make that trade.

Why would you want to become Thunder East?

 

If PG was playing with Kawhi in Toronto, why would he have demanded a trade instantly?? This is the same guy who committed to spending the next 5 years in OKC with Westbrook.

 

LOL @ Raptors if they actually had a chance to team up Kawhi with PG and decided not to because of Siakam.

Now they have just Siakam.

Morons.

Dont like WB? Just trade him to someone else for something else.

Hell, Morey would be lining up to get the third star.

Again, if Raptors could do it but refused, they are idiots.

 

You did not read Wojs tweet, he said ultimately Raps didn't have enough for the trade.

 

Doesn’t sound like almost...

The bigger story is OKC was ready to start all over, realizing they aren’t going anywhere with WB.

“Presti had been willing to pursue a package of Russell Westbrook and George to the Raptors, but no talks ever gained traction, sources said. Ujiri and Raptors GM Bobby Webster had no ability, nor inclination to counter the Clippers offer with a multitude of first-round picks into the middle of the next decade, league sources said.”

 

Its pretty clear regardless of whether or not Masai was willing to pull the trigger, he couldn't outbid the Clippers - in the end this was out of his hands.

 

Lemme go to my bookie real quick and put some money on Westbrook to the Knicks

 

ultimately OKV got more for PG than what they paid for.

evem with Kowhi leaving, Raptors have to be happy about the trade they made. they won Jeremy Lin a title and Derozan was a good player but also a bottleneck for them

 

This keeps getting better and better.

OKC is a pool of drama.

 

Woj just tweeted they were just using Toronto to leverage what the they really wanted which was the clippers 5 picks. Toronto had no chance with or without Siakam.

 

Yeah - this is what people miss. Toronto could only agree to any deal if Kawhi was on-board with staying. Otherwise, they could have been stuck with PG and RW and no Kawhi. If Kawhi was trying to leverage his way onto the Clippers and knew they were making their own offer to OKC, there's no way he'd agree to that.

 

Any other (pooper) scooper would've leaked this like a kid in a swimming pool.

Woj still breaks just by posting the aftermath.

Industry wide respect.

He was Yahoo Sports until he decided to apprentice Shams.

He’’s like The Godfather parts 1 & 2 + the best parts of 3 (if there was any)

 

Westbrook and Jordan's Horners is a match made in heaven...

 

Shocked Morey did not try for George. If Butler worth 4 firsts, then 7 firsts for George not completely unrealistic.

 

I was just thinking about this earlier. I believe this to be true. WOJ and SHAMS are a "sub" brand now of their respective outlets. I'm pretty sure they have interns or a team working under them to break news. After all people don't care (nor trust) when random little known reporters "break" any news, it only becomes gospel after WOJ/SHAMS bombs. It's quite comical after all the insiders had Khawhi at 99% LAL or TOR according to their own "sources"

If you look at their respective tweets when news broke they were a minute off of one another...clearly the INSIDER power ranking is:
1. WOJ
2. SHAMS
...
50. CYBERX/Codman
59. Windhorst
74. Dwights barber
124. Stephen A
546. Chris Broussard

 

Lots of people saying just move Westbrook to another team but honestly, I can't even think of a team other than new York or maybe the Magic who would give up significant trade assets for such a detrimental player. Westbrook may be a John Wall level bad contract. The only difference is he keeps you from getting a good pick while also impeding success. I predict that if/when a Westbrook trade goes down, there's gonna be a lot smaller return than anyone expects.

 

Maybe he thought they would keep Kawhi regardless

Edit: Ok the tweet explained it Ujiri thought he was just being used to increase the trade price for George and Kawhi would go away regardless

 

Thunder East would probably dominate honestly.

 

He wont get George regardless as Clippers have more assets.

Presti probably wanted to finesse Ujiri and say hey PG not available anymore but you can have WB for Siakam and picks. He could have leaked the trade details if Ujiri agreed so Siakam would be disgruntled and the trade would push through even if PG already got sent to the Clips.