LaMarcus Aldridge Will Meet With Los Angeles Lakers First in Free Agency

The NBA's Free Agency Period opens at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time Wednesday morning, which translates 9:00 p.m. Tuesday on the West Coast. Mike Bresnahan of the L.A. Times tweets that the first team to meet with Portland Trail Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge will be the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers are moving quickly, will meet with LaMarcus Aldridge immediately after free agency begins Tuesday at 9:01 pm.

— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) June 30, 2015

Aldridge is reportedly being courted by multiple teams, including the Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets, New York Knicks, and San Antonio Spurs. The Trail Blazers are expected to have some say in the matter as well.

Meeting first with a team is no guarantee of marriage, but it does indicate where strong interest lies.

Update: Next on the list are the San Antonio Spurs.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovic, forward Tim Duncan & guard Tony Parker expected to attend LaMarcus Aldridge meeting, a source told Yahoo Sports.

— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) June 30, 2015

The Dallas Mavericks also have their 10-gallon hat in the ring.

Mavs have DeAndre Jordan meeting Wednesday morning, LaMarcus Aldridge that afternoon. Both in LA.

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) June 30, 2015

And David Aldridge claims to know the whole schedule.

@aldridge_12 itinerary starts Tuesday at 9 PDT (midnight EDT), with the Lakers, and goes, in order: HOU, SA, PHO, DAL, TOR thru Thursday.

— David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) June 30, 2015

The latter is significant not just for Phoenix being included, but if he knows the order he's likely got sources in Aldridge's circle, which opens up the possibility of recent media "sources" coming from that field.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports appeared on FoxSports1 tonight and suggested the Spurs are the front-runners for Aldridge's services but that LaMarcus' camp is still mulling over the max deal from the Trail Blazers.

Woj TV Bomb?

A video posted by @mbrawley1 on Jun 29, 2015 at 8:25pm PDT

Here's a bonus update on Wesley Matthews from ESPN's Marc Stein.

Word I hear is that Wes Matthews (@wessywes2) is ahead of schedule on his Achilles rehab and drawing interest from Toronto as well as Dallas

— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) June 30, 2015

Frankly it'd be surprising if we didn't get a positive injury update on Matthews at this time, but it's still nice to hear.

Update (12:12pm PST): Spurs are looking to clear cap space, almost certainly with the intent of signing Aldridge.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">league source sez <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Spurs?src=hash">#Spurs</a> talking to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cavs?src=hash">#Cavs</a> re. trade for B. Hayward&#39;s non-guaranteed $10.5 M contract</p>&mdash; Mike Monroe (@Monroe_SA) <a href="https://twitter.com/Monroe_SA/status/615956293648412672">June 30, 2015</a></blockquote>
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