Trading Hill was hard, but a Parker deal was never likely

Reports that the Spurs were discussing deals involving the three-time All-Star and MVP of the 2007 NBA Finals weren’t fiction. But the talks were initiated by teams that had a sense the Spurs were in a mood to blow up their core after the disappointment of the first-round elimination in Memphis.

According to insiders from a team that inquired, each team that called heard the same message from general manager R.C. Buford: Make your best offer, but understand we won’t consider a deal unless Richard Jefferson is part of it.

The talks usually ended there, and when draft night ended Thursday, Parker remained a Spur.

The Spurs likely didn’t mind the attention paid to Parker. Those rumors kept the focus off more serious talks involving his backup, and before the draft was two hours old, the deal the Spurs had burned the phone lines to make was being reported: George Hill for Indiana’s draftee, San Diego State’s Kawhi Leonard, plus second-round picks.

Leonard is an athlete who scores and rebounds. We won’t know if he is the starting small forward of the future, but the fact the Spurs were pushing Jefferson to the teams that wanted Parker may be a clue.

Two Western Conference GMs told me they were surprised Leonard fell to No. 15 and weren’t happy he landed in San Antonio.

Hill wasn’t happy to be the player traded to get him, and his pal, DeJuan Blair, was downright angry.

Selected in back-to-back drafts by a team that was older than dirt, Hill and Blair quickly became best buddies.

They hung out together, did commercials for a local business and created their own nicknames, “Big and Smalls.” The joke, of course, was that Hill, the 6-foot-2 guard, was “Big.” Blair, all 6-7 and 270 pounds, was “Smalls.”

Hill developed so much in his second season, some called Parker expendable. So when rumors began circulating this week that the Spurs were talking to teams about moving Hill, player personnel experts for other teams wondered why.

“I thought Pop loved that kid,” one GM said, perplexed by the trade talk.

Popovich and Buford didn’t like Hill any less. Trading him hurt, and the deal wasn’t about getting rid of him. Rather, it was about adding Leonard, and the fact they traded up in the draft for the first time in the Popovich era should be a clue about their opinion of a player who had better become Popovich’s favorite sooner than later.