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The teams were in business, but some last-minute details remained. The Spurs were torn about dealing Hill, and they wanted two assets in addition to the no. 15 pick — the rights to Erazem Lorbek, a rangy big man in Europe, and the no. 42 pick. The Pacers knew San Antonio coveted both, especially Lorbek, but they figured one would be enough to seal things. Nope. The Spurs requested both. "That night was the first time Larry [Bird] and I entertained with our owner the idea of sending out both assets," Morway says. Buford recalls, "We just told them, 'This is what it's going to take for us to give up George Hill.' He was such a big part of our fiber and our culture. It took a significant opportunity for us to move him."3
The Pacers swallowed hard and agreed. There was still one problem left: Indiana loved Kawhi Leonard. The Pacers had him about no. 5 or no. 6 on their draft board, and they thought very hard about scrapping the Hill deal and just taking a guy they never expected to be alive at no. 15. "When Kawhi ended up being there, we had to think about taking him," Morway says. "But we already had Danny Granger and Paul George. That's what made it a little easier for us."
And so, with the clock ticking down on Indiana's pick, the teams agreed to the final deal. The Pacers picked Leonard, who dutifully stood up, showed the world his prom suit, crammed a Pacers hat onto his head, and shook the commissioner's hand. He had no clue he was about to be traded, though he remembered the Spurs interviewing him at the draft combine, even though they did not have a pick in or near the lottery. He was striding to his first round of media interviews when a league official shouted at him to stop — he might have already been traded. "It was a total shock to me," he says.
