UPDATE: One of Lance Stephenson's representatives told Derek Schultz that his phone disconnected during the interview. Stephenson has been booked to appear on the show again on Tuesday.
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The New Orleans Pelicans will play host to the Indiana Pacers in a preseason game on Tuesday, which means Lance Stephenson will face his former team. In advance of the matchup, Indianapolis radio station Fox Sports 97.5 conducted an interview with the ex-Pacer ... or tried to, at least.
On the "Query & Schultz" show, Stephenson said he was excited to be with the Pelicans and referred to Indiana as a second home, but when his 2014 free agency became the topic of discussion, he did not have much to say. And then he apparently hung up.
Listen here:
Of course, it's possible there was simply just a bad connection. That's not how co-host Derek Schultz saw it, however -- Schultz wrote that Stephenson "decided to end the conversation."
It's understandable that this is still a sore subject. Before Stephenson left the Pacers to sign with the Charlotte Hornets, he was a fringe All-Star and a core part of an upper-echelon Eastern Conference team. Now he's in camp with New Orleans on a non-guaranteed contract for the minimum salary.
Schultz and co-host Jake Query weren't exactly asking him difficult questions about it, though. Stephenson could have easily said that he didn't want to go into specifics, but he took the offer that made the most sense to him at the time. Had he done that, the harmless interview would have continued and no one would be writing stories about him hanging up on a couple of Indianapolis radio hosts.
