Los Angeles Lakers general manager reveals he had almost given up on his pursuit of the superman before Rob Hennigan came forth ....
The talks of Dwight Howard coming over to the Los Angeles Lakers had been circulating long before the deal was finalized.
However when the agreement was finally made, no one was as surprised as general manager Mitch Kupchak, who now admits he did not see it coming.
Kupchak was more surprised at the way the Magic management handled the matter.
“Without going into great detail, I just felt the Magic were just canvassing the league, which is the job. … I didn’t think there would be a deal. It got really quiet a couple weeks ago. Before that, it was very crazy – and then
it just died. So we had kind of moved on.” He said recently.
When the Howard deal apparently fell apart, the Lakers signed Antawn Jamison and brought back Jordan Hill in an attempt to add some steel to the frontcourt.
Kupchak credited Orlando’s general manager Rob Hennigan, who in his short time in charge worked carefully to work out a deal for D-12.
“Looking back on it, he did exactly what he was supposed to do,” Kupchak said. “He took his time. He looked at every opportunity, narrowed it down, negotiated, went back to a different team, negotiated some more, kept on coming
back to you.”
The block buster move involved the Lakers, Magic, Denver Nuggets and Philadelphia 76ers.
Magic sent Howard to the Lakers and Jason Richardson to the Sixers while the Lakers sent Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia while Andre Iguodala went to Denver. Orlando picked up Arron Afflalo, Christian Eyenga, Moe Harkless, Al Harrington,
Josh McRoberts and Nikola Vucevic along with future draft picks in return for the deal worked out by Hennigan.
Kupchak also acknowledged the fact that he thought the deal would involve three teams but the idea of having four teams majorly involved in the dynamics never occurred to him. For this also, he gave the credit to the Orlando GM.
“I never thought it would be a four-team deal; I thought it might be a three-team deal. So even when I thought there might be a deal there, he went out and found a fourth team to make it a better deal.”
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