Spanish-language Blog de Basket has quite the compelling story running today, particularly for Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors fans; the problem is that BallinEurope.com cannot seem to confirm the story’s veracity or the source reportage.
According to Il ‘Blog, the Raptors have advanced an offer of Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon to the Lakers for Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher. Supposedly, the San Antonio Spurs are also interested in making a deal for Gasol, which would be quite the bizarre transaction, indeed. (Who comes to L.A.? Tony Parker?)
The story quotes no less than John Hollinger of ESPN.com as having confirmed this rumor, but without linkage.
Update: BiE wishes a big “thank you” to Mr. Hollinger, who dropped us an email this morning (CET time) on this subject. Not surprisingly, Hollinger had nothing to do with the unsubstantiated rumor, explaining that “I have no connection at all to this Toronto-Pau stuff. There was a commenter fraudulently posting with my name and [another website] decided this made it valid. Please stop attributing this nonsense to me.”
Guess Pau ain’t going anywhere. For the time being.
Tags: Andrea Bargnani, Derek Fisher, Jose Calderon, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, NBA 2011-12, Pau Gasol, San Antonio Spurs, Tony Parker, Toronto Raptors
The only place I have seen this proposed trade was in the comments section of John Hollinger’s chat on ESPN.com last week. A commenter created a fake account named John Hollinger and was answering items in the comments section of the actual chat. Here’s the chat where it occurred during: http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/41956/nba-with-john-hollinger
In the actual chat, you’ll see that Hollinger states he never responds to comments on his posts. And if you read down in the comments section, you’ll see mention of the fake John Hollinger, whose posts have been deleted. That’s where this rumor got started.
[...] top “story” right now on BallinEurope.com, a European ball site affiliated with ESPN’s True Hoop network, [...]
[...] Via BallinEurope [...]
[...] Truth or fiction? Toronto Raptors interested in, propose trade for Pau Gasol Posted by jlv81 at 8:58 am [...]
Can I get Pau to the Bucks somehow? Bogut & Gasol awesome frontcourt!
Gooden, Sanders, Ersan, Mbah Moute for Pau? (not bloody likely!, even there not that dumb)
I may have to work on getting Bogut to the Lakers for Bynum!
[...] Via (BallinEurope) [...]
It has become the cool thing to do for some people to post fake rumors..and it has become the cool thing to do for several sites to take those rumors as true without double-checking.
John Hollinger sounds like a real JERK based on that message he sent you. How pathetic. The guy is a total nerd, plus a jerk.
It’s so pathetic that losers like him have such high paying jobs and such hugely inflated opinions of themselves.
[...] top “story” right now on BallinEurope.com, a European ball site affiliated with ESPN’s [...]