The Los Angeles Lakers were the first in line to meet with unrestricted free agent LaMarcus Aldridge when free agency began. It was originally believed that the meeting went well, but now that may not be the case.
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According to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers did not make a strong impression on Aldridge:
Lakers didn't make strong impression in Aldridge meeting, sources say. Spurs can close on him. LMA expected to make decision fairly soon.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 1, 2015
This is not a good sign for the Lakers as the San Antonio Spurs were already favored to land him and have now already agreed to a deal to keep Danny Green and traded away Tiago Splitter to clear out the necessary cap space to sign Aldridge.
There is no way to know exactly how everything went and with others saying that the meeting went well, the Lakers could still possibly land him, but things are in serious jeopardy at this point. If Aldridge does indeed spurn the Lakers for San Antonio, the Lakers will need to move quickly in order to secure one of their top targets.
The team is already meeting with Greg Monroe and also has meetings scheduled with DeAndre Jordan and Kevin Love. With players agreeing to deals already, the Lakers will need to work hard to ensure they don’t come out of this period empty-handed.
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