The Golden State Warriors say the Portland Trail Blazers withheld pertinent information when the two sides agreed to a trade for Gary Payton II last week, and there are reportedly some who believe that is not the first time the Blazers have supposedly done that.
The Warriors and Blazers on Thursday agreed to a deal to send Payton to Golden State in exchange for five second-round draft picks. The Warriors then discovered in their physical exam that Payton had a core muscle injury with the potential to sideline him for months. One report even claimed that the Blazers were pushing Payton to play through his injury and giving him pain-killing shots to do so (a claim that Payton’s agent responded to).
Golden State decided on Sunday to still go through with the trade, but they have filed an official complaint with the NBA. League officials are looking into the situation.
NBA reporters Chris Haynes and Marc Stein spoke about the drama between the Warriors and Blazers on the latest episode of their “#thisleague UNCUT” podcast. According to Haynes, Golden State executives have urged the NBA to also look into last year’s trade that sent CJ McCollum and Larry Nance Jr. to the New Orleans Pelicans as part of a big deal involving several players and draft picks.
The Warriors reportedly believe that the Trail Blazers withheld information about Nance’s injury prior to making that trade.
“They’ve urged the league to look into that — particularly, Larry Nance Jr. — because they believe that a similar incident happened in that deal and they feel like the Blazers have a pattern of doing something where they’re either withholding information or presenting misleading information,” Haynes said, as transcribed by a Reddit user.
Nance had been sidelined for a month last year with a knee injury before Portland traded him to the Pelicans. He underwent surgery after the trade was completed and missed another six weeks.
It is unclear if the Pelicans have filed a complaint or the Warriors are speaking on their behalf. Either way, people in Golden State clearly believe the Blazers negotiated in bad faith last week and have done it before.
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