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.