word choice - 'And' vs 'or' in this sentence?

The team can pair James — and whoever else might be coming — with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma.

I saw the sentence from a news article. I doubt the usage of "and" here.

From my understanding, 'pair' denotes two parties. So, the team can separately pair James with Brandon Ingram, James with Lonzo Ball or James with Kyle Kuzma. Then the sentence should be:

The team can pair James — and whoever else might be coming — with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball or Kyle Kuzma.

But is this possible to pair James with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma? What would it mean — if possible/correct — to pair James with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma?

The full source.

Answer

I believe that the use of and is intentional.

Pair does normally mean two people:

[Merriam-Webster]

noun

b : a partnership especially of two players in a contest against another partnership

transitive verb

1 a : to make a pair of —often used with off or up · paired off the animals
b : to cause to be a member of a pair
c : to arrange a voting pair between

2 : to arrange in pairs

intransitive verb

1 : to constitute a member of a pair · a sock that didn't pair

2 a : to become associated with another —often used with off or up · paired up with an old friend

b : to become grouped or separated into pairs —often used with off · paired off for the next dance

If the example sentence had been talking about forming groups of more than two people, my assumption would be that the word group would have been used instead. (Although team up would sound more natural, it would be awkward to write the team can team up.)

So, for the sake of argument, I'll assume that the sentence is talking about forming pairs—groups of two people.

Some people have not yet arrived: James and some other people.

Other people are presumably already there: Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma.

The key to determining that the final conjunction should be and rather than or is this:

The team can pair James — and whoever else might be coming . . .

This is saying that it's not only James who will be paired with somebody, but also the other people coming (whoever they may be).

If these other people were not to be included in pairs, then I see little point in mentioning them—and certainly no point in mentioning them with this phrasing.

Assuming that two other people arrive with James, we can then breakdown and rephrase the sentence in the following manner:

The team will pair (in some fashion):

• James, Person 1 and Person 2 with


• Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma.

While it's true that James could be paired with Brandon Ingram or Lonzo Ball or Kyle Kuzma (and the same could be said for each other person with others), the sentence as written isn't describing a specific pairing (involving just James) but an overall group of people between all of whom pairings will be made.