LaMarcus Aldridge Meeting with the Lakers Again, Kobe Bryant Not Invited

One day after a supposedly disastrous meeting between LaMarcus Aldridge and the LA Lakers – the LA Times even wrote a terrific tick-tock about “how the Lakers lost LaMarcus Aldridge” – something happened and now the power forward is meeting with them again.

The Lakers will get a second meeting with LaMarcus Aldridge today in Los Angeles, league source tells Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2015

What a stunning turn of events! A few theories behind this change of heart:

1) Aldridge feels bad about all the negative news that emerged from the meeting and because he’s such a swell guy, he’s willing to give them another shot and help the Lakers look less clueless than they are.

Aldridge felt first meeting with Lakers was too focused on non-basketball (Hollywood, branding, etc) and Lakers want to rectify it.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2015

2) Aldridge wants to give the Suns more time to clear more cap room so he can pair with Tyson Chandler and Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight.

3) Reporters were woefully uninformed on the original Aldridge-Lakers meeting. (Note: Adrian Wojnarowski only reported that the Lakers “didn’t make a strong impression.”) It should be noted that just last week, it was reported LeBron wouldn’t be re-recruiting Kevin Love. That was way, way off, as Love said yesterday.

4) Kobe “Free Agent Killer” Bryant is not invited to the meeting. He was instrumental in driving Dwight Howard to Houston two years ago, and keeping the Lakers from getting Carmelo Anthony last year. The Lakers have to hope they can fix whatever Kobe may have broken the other day.

The second meeting with the Lakers will only involve GM Mitch Kupchak and Coach Byron Scott, & will only be about basketball, per source.
— David Aldridge (@davidaldridgedc) July 2, 2015