Report: Lakers offer Warriors D-Lo for Klay in sign-and-trade

Report: Lakers offer Warriors D-Lo for Klay in sign-and-trade. This article originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

The Warriors would have had the opportunity to reunite a former star player.

Before Klay Thompson agreed to sign a three-year, $50 million contract with the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, the Los Angeles Lakers — one of Thompson’s rumored suitors in free agency — made an interesting offer to the veteran guard.

The Lakers offered Thompson a multi-year contract that was set to pay him about $20 million per year as part of a sign-and-trade deal with Golden State that would have sent guard D’Angelo Russell to the Warriors, TNT’s Chris Haynes reported Monday.

“I’m told the Lakers made a pretty good offer, it was around three or four years,” Haynes told Bleacher Report. “Something like $20 million a year and they didn’t get their guy. And it obviously had to be a sign-and-trade scenario, so it had nothing to do with LeBron James taking less. It had to be a trade to get Klay and it just didn’t happen.”

“I was told that would have likely involved D’Angelo Russell being part of a deal to get Klay and from what I was told, the Warriors were not interested in bringing D’Angelo Russell back.”

This isn’t the first time the Warriors have traded Thompson for Russell in a trade deal. After Thompson suffered a torn ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals, Golden State completed a three-team trade deal with the Brooklyn Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves on July 1, 2019, that sent star forward Kevin Durant to Brooklyn, Russell to Golden State, and Shabazz Napier, Treveon Graham, cash and a future first-round pick to Minnesota.

In his 33 games with the Warriors during the 2019–20 NBA season, Russell averaged 23.6 points, 3.7 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game on 43 percent shooting and 37.4 percent from 3-point range as Steph Curry’s second leading scorer, with Thompson sidelined for the entire season.

The 28-year-old point guard averaged 18 points, 3.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game on 45.6 percent shooting and 41.5 percent from 3-point range in 76 games with the Lakers last season.

The warriors, obviously, were not interested.

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