LaMarcus Aldridge meets with Lakers a second time

Sam Amick | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption LaMarcus Aldridge and DeAndre Jordan still weighing options USA TODAY Sports' Eddie Johnson discusses the latest NBA free agency news

Behold "LA to LA, Part 2."

Because no place does sequels to bad movies like Hollywood.

Free agent forward LaMarcus Aldridge made the surprising decision to meet with the Los Angeles Lakers for a second time on Thursday afternoon, only this time he means business – about basketball. Clearly, the Lakers know now, that's how he wanted it in the first place.

It was less than two days ago when Aldridge's free agency frenzy began with an evening meeting in Los Angeles, one that included everyone from Lakers president and governor Jeanie Buss to Kobe Bryant to officials from the AEG company that owns part of the team and the building it plays in. Not counting the reps from AEG and the Time Warner company that telecasts Lakers games (head count unknown), there were eight people in the room with Aldridge and his representatives.

Apparently that was six too many.

According to a person with knowledge of the meeting, the second session that no one saw coming will include only Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and coach Byron Scott with Aldridge and his representatives. The focus, which is apparently a stark contrast to the first sit-down, will be on the game itself and the question of whether or not he'd be a good fit on the court with the storied franchise. The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the process.

According to ESPN.com, Aldridge – who was scheduled to meet with the New York Knicks on Thursday afternoon but (according to NBA.com) cancelled – will then meet with the Miami Heat and be courted by one of the most persuasive personalities in the history of the game, team president Pat Riley. There's yet another wrinkle, too, as the agent for Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, Aaron Goodwin, told USA TODAY Sports that his client is planning an impromptu visit to Los Angeles to try and convince his former teammate to stay.

Lillard, who finalized a five-year extension worth between $125 and $129 million on Thursday, just returned from a promotional trip in Paris. The relationship between those two players has been a focal point of Aldridge's possible departure from Portland, but Lillard is determined to send a clear message that theirs is a powerful pairing that should not come to an end.

But LA, yet again, gets the first shot at LA.

The first go-round had all the requisite glitz that always comes with Lakers pitches, from Jeanie Buss' "LA to LA" tweets to the entertainers begging Aldridge to come via Twitter leading into it (Adam Levine and Snoop Dogg among them) to the business angle of the pitch that tried to appeal to Aldridge's off-court side. But Aldridge wants to know the purple and gold truth – how would he fit with Kobe Bryant, D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and all the rest of them, how he'd be used by Scott, and where they're going in the wildly-uncertain future.

In other words, LaCircus continues.

Aldridge is hardly the first free agent to think long and hard about such a key decision, but this is clearly a drastic change in script for the 29-year-old who has visited with the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, Toronto Raptors and Dallas Mavericks. According to the Wasserman Media Group that represents him, even the incumbent Portland Trailblazers aren't – as so many have suspected – out of the mix.

Before Aldridge's latest of change in plans, the Suns and Spurs were believed to be leading the race for his services. Phoenix surged into the race with the unexpected landing of center Tyson Chandler, who agreed to a four-year, $52 million deal on Wednesday that came with a nuanced impact on Aldridge's outlook: he has long been known to prefer playing forward rather than the center, and to respect Chandler greatly, all of which made it the kind of win-win that put Phoenix in a much-improved position.

Then the Suns put a few more of their chips on the table on Thursday, trading Marcus Morris, Reggie Bullock, and Danny Granger to the Detroit in an attempt to clear the kind of salary cap space that they'd need to add Aldridge on a maximum-salary contract. According to former Brooklyn Nets assistant general manager-turned-analyst Bobby Marks via Twitter, the Suns' deals are not yet enough to bring Chandler and Aldridge to the desert.

But alas, that was all part of "LA to LA, Part One." The sequel starts now.

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