Three teams declare they are interested in signing the forward.
As the Los Angeles Lakers continue to look at ways to shed salary and potentially get under the luxury tax threshold this season, Jordan Hill is a player that many expect to be dealt before Thursday’s trade deadline passes.
L.A. was in talks with Brooklyn a couple of days ago, mainly because the Nets have a $5.25 million disabled player exception they received once Brook Lopez went down with a season-ending injury.
Now, there are as many as three teams reportedly interested, though the Nets remain the frontrunner in the Lakers eyes for financial reasons.
The Pelicans received their $4.15 million exception for Ryan Anderson Wednesday, so they (like the Nets) are an ideal partner for the Lakers when considering the motives in Los Angeles.
Since three teams are interested in Hill, however, L.A. does have a bit of leverage here, and will try to milk something of value out of one of the interested parties in the form of a draft pick or young player on a minimum or rookie contract.
In case they can’t pull that off, expect the Lakers to send Hill to one of the teams holding an exception, which would mean that no contract would need to come back to L.A. in return, and the Lakers would trim another $3.5 million off the books.
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