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NBA Trade Rumors: LA Clippers seek to Acquire Rudy Gay without trading Blake Griffin

| Jul 31, 2016 05:28 AM EDT

Rudy Gay

The NBA trade rumors continue as Rudy Gay appears to have made amends with Sacramento Kings GM Vlade Divac. He'll probably stay in California.

However, there are three other teams in the Golden State. Gay is probably not going to the Warriors as they have a pretty good small forward.

Gay has confirmed that he has talked to Divac when he spoke to Sean Cunningham. (h/t CBS)

 "I have talked to Vlade," Gay said."I can't say since Monday stuff has changed, but I just feel like we have a little bit of time to start changing things."

"At this point in my career I just want to be happy," said Gay. "I talked to Vlade and we're trying to make that happen."

His final statement-"we're trying to make that happen" can be interpreted in different ways. Either the Kings will try to make changes or Divac is looking for a team that Gay would like to be traded to.

On a curious note, Gay mentioned two LA Clippers players during his rant at Sactown Royalty. Gay was looking for "stability" and he mentioned that Paul Pierce and Jamal Crawford "have that stability and they know what their worth is for a team and what their job is for a team, how they can work on that and play for that team."

As Clipperholics pointed out, there could be an underlying reason why Pierce and Crawford were cited by Gay out of all the players in the league. There must be something that caught his eye.

The Clippers are a good fit for Gay..so much that there were rumors that the Clippers were rumored to be willing to trade Blake Griffin to acquire him (and other pieces from the Boston Celtics, of course). Those rumors were shot down and put to rest, but the fact remains-Gay would help the Clippers get better and a trade there would be good for his career.

However, the only trade chips that the Clippers can send at this time (aside from the Big Three) are JJ Redick and Paul Pierce. It works on the Trade Machine but the Clips are unlikely to trade Redick and Pierce has not even decided on whether he would retire yet.

The Clippers could wait until their newly-signed players are trade eligible or use another team to facilitate. That's Rivers' burden and he's probably trying to figure it out.

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