Not surprised. TD21 and myself had kind of assumed that. I havee to give credit to TD21. He was the first who thought that was likely. I just assumed Pop would preserve the illusion that LMA was a 4 by starting the two together, even if he played others at the 4 more.
An interesting aspect is as you said, were Manu's comments in media day that he hopes LMA is there for the entire season. If he were to get traded midseason, Pau would be the most significant big and his $16 million contract entirely justified in hindsight + he'd need chemistry with the starters.