It’s an eye-catching story because we’re talking Metta World Peace — a player it’s hard to stop watching, at times because of the train wreck — but the fact is teams have “casual conversations” with potential camp invites and veterans working out at their facilities all the time. It rarely amounts to anything.
While NBA twitter buzzed Monday about the news the Lakers and World Peace’s people had talked possible contract, MWP himself was oblivious. Here is what he told TMZ when asked about the talks.
“I didn’t hear that… I got four kids, so I didn’t hear nothin’.”
First, as a father myself, that is totally understandable. Children never let you focus on one thing, or even pay attention to things you want to follow. Like your NBA career.
Second, these casual conversations likely were between someone with the Lakers and someone helping represent World Peace, and who knows who initiated the talks. It’s not uncommon for a player to be out of the loop on these, unless they push their agent for details. Also, it benefits one side of that equation more to leak news of the talks, if you want to follow the bread crumbs.
That said, World Peace said he would “absolutely” love to play for the Lakers again. He’s not worried about the level of play after having been away from the NBA for a season (and having been waived by the Knicks the season before that).
“Basketball is an easy sport… a lot of professionals, they are okay. They aren’t nothing special.”
Vintage World Peace. For selfish reasons, I’d love to have him back in the league. I just can’t think of a logical reason the Lakers would do it.