Beasley to Lakers, Crawford to Wolves? Thursday trade deadline approaches

The Timberwolves are pursuing a three-way trade that would send Michael Beasley to the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland guard Jamal Crawford to Minnesota and Steve Blake to the Blazers before Thursday's 2 p.m. trade deadline approaches, league sources confirmed this afternoon.

Not sure yet what other elements -- namely, draft pick(s) -- might be involved.

The Timberwolves just concluded practice in Phoenix before flying to Utah this afternoon, and Beasley was there shooting at the end and then walked up and climbed on the bus with his teammates.

I saw it with my own eyes.

The question is, will he still be a Timberwolf this time tomorrow?

"Twenty-four hours from now? Whooooo," Beasley said, his voice rising when asked if he still expected to wear a Wolves uniform Thursday night at Utah. "I mean, of course. But if I'm not, I'm not.

"I'm just a pawn in this game. L.A. Boston, New Jersey, Orlando, anywhere they decide to move me, then I've got to go. I'm not saying I want to, but that's something I have no control over. I'd love to stay here. It don't make it no easier if I've got to up and move. I got a nice-sized house with a lot of things inside of it, but I'd rather stay. If I've got to go, it's just business."

"Nothing important," he said about their conversation. "We'll see what happens."

He said he has talked to his agent, Jeff Schwartz.

"I heard a little bit, but nothing so far," Beasley said. "I'll just wait to hear from him. I don't watch the sports channels or read the newspapers."

Asked if he updates his Twitter account regularly to follow the latest rumors, he said, "Nah, I try to stay out of the world."

Yahoo!Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski first reported today that a Beasley-Crawford swap was gaining momentum.

The Wolves pursued Crawford as a free agent in December. I talked to Crawford before the game in Portland earlier this month and here's how he said the Wolves' courting him went down: They had alread signed J.J. Barea to a four-year deal and wanted to sign him, too. They asked him to remain patient while they dealt with other matters, but he said he wanted to be in training camp on time and narrowed his list to Portland and Sacramento before choose the Blazers, who are just down the freeway from where he grew up in Seattle.

"I really thought they were a team on the rise," Crawford said then. "Their young guys have gotten better, obviously with Rubio coming in. I'm a big fan of Coach of Adelman. He's really laid back. He's an old-school coach. He's got some great, great, great stuff offensively. I can't take credit and say I saw them being right there in the thick of things (a playoff race) but I definitely saw them being a lot better than they were last year.

"Toward the end of it, I wasn't sure how interested or serious they were. I think they wanted me to be more patient and at that time, I was kind of running out of time."