On Monday, the Orlando Magic quietly signed swingmen Patricio Garino and Marcus George-Hunt. This did not make waves in the NBA -- it’s just a lottery team taking a quick look at a couple of prospects with a week and a half left in the season. It turned out to be of immediate consequence, though, when a photo of Garino signing his contract hit Twitter.
Carlos Prunes, who appears to be the director of Garino’s Argentinian agency, made the mistake of tweeting it despite the fact that a whiteboard -- with the Magic’s various offseason options on it -- was right behind Garino. Prunes has since deleted the tweet, but here’s the photo:
At first, this might not seem like such a huge deal -- it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Magic would be smart to go after a stretch big man and a combo forward. The problem is this is a pretty comprehensive list of their targets, and, well, look at the fifth-to-last name in the “hybrid trade” section.
Yep, that line -- “SARIC (FOR AG?)” -- could be an issue. It suggests the idea of swapping Aaron Gordon for Philadelphia 76ers forward Dario Saric has at least been discussed internally. That doesn’t mean such a deal is imminent or will even be brought to Philadelphia as a possibility, but Gordon and his representatives probably won’t be thrilled that it’s out there now.
To be clear: Front offices go over their options routinely, so it’s not as if Orlando has done anything weird or wrong here. It’s just extremely rare that the public ever sees this kind of thing. Whoops.
