One of the strangest bits of drama to come out of the NBA recently has to do with a four-team trade involving the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers.
The trade, which also included the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks, sent Gary Payton II to Golden State. Once he arrived to his new team, however, it was reported that the trade was in danger of being nullified because his physical with the team revealed that his lingering abdomen injury would sideline him for a while.
Golden State was understandably unhappy about that, and it seems like it believes there was some wrongdoing from the Blazers.
“The Warriors shared with the league what they believed to be evidence that Portland failed to provide relevant medical information on his condition prior to agreeing on the trade, sources said,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported. “Also, the Blazers didn’t inform the Warriors that Payton — who missed 35 games after offseason abdomen surgery — had been taking the pain-killing medication Toradol to help allow him to play in games this season, sources said.”
As it turns out, the Warriors believe that the Blazers have a history of not disclosing the whole truth when it comes to injuries. They have reportedly urged the NBA to look into the team’s deal that sent Larry Nance Jr. to the New Orleans Pelicans last season.
Nance underwent surgery shortly after being acquired by the Pelicans.
 “I was told that they’ve urged the league to look into Portland’s dealing with New Orleans last year, when it was the C.J. McCollum-Larry Nance trade,” Chris Haynes said. “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 may have a pattern of doing something where they’re either withholding information or presenting misleading information.”
Clearly, the Warriors are not happy with how things went down in their deal this season and want to make sure that the Blazers are being looked at by the league.
Though there was concern that the deal would be nullified due to what the Warriors found during Payton’s physical, the deal did ultimately go through.
Due to Payton’s familiarity with the Warriors and Stephen Curry being out with a leg injury, one would assume that the Warriors planned to give Payton a decent amount of minutes.
The 30-year-old journeyman has averaged 14.7 minutes per game during his playing career and is averaging 4.1 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.1 steals per game this season.
He’s been pretty efficient with his shooting during his limited playing time, shooting 58.5 percent from the field.
Surely, the Warriors and Payton will look to put the rocky resumption to their partnership behind them while the NBA continues to investigate the trade itself.
If the NBA discovers any wrongdoing by the Blazers, the franchise could be punished with a fine and loss of draft picks.
