4:05pm: The Blazers released a statement confirming the news, tweets Aaron J. Fentress of The Oregonian.
“The Golden State Warriors have decided to not pursue a grievance against the Blazers over the Payton trade. We are moving on, and glad to put this behind us.”
3:34pm: The Warriors have decided not to pursue an NBA investigation against the Trail Blazers following the four-team trade at last month’s deadline, league sources tell Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report (Twitter link).
The trade was held up for multiple days after the Warriors failed Gary Payton II‘s physical due to an adductor injury, but they ultimately decided to go through with it.
Payton has yet to play for the Warriors since the trade, but he is officially listed as probable for Sunday’s game and he intends to play against Minnesota barring a last-minute setback, per Kendra Andrew of ESPN (Twitter links). The veteran guard will be on an undisclosed minutes restriction, Andrews adds.
Payton, who helped the Warriors win the championship in 2021/22, signed a three-year, $26.1MM contract with Portland last summer, but only appeared in 15 games for the Blazers after offseason adductor surgery. He started for Portland the day before the trade.
A formal league inquiry into the Portland’s alleged failure to provide sufficient medical information was expected to be opened, but according to Haynes, the Warriors have decided against that course of action. It certainly doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Haynes’ report coincides with Payton’s imminent return to the court.
You don’t slap Blazers or rip Portland on their Rip City
It is only worth $6MM for two second round picks
Next level, Silliman Buns.
smells like pickle
They did enough by airing the problem so Portland can’t do that again, and make it more difficult to deal with.
What problem did they air exactly??? It was a bogus claim to begin with. The facts kept changing and what exactly happened to him being so injured that that they expected him to miss 3 months??? That turned out to be about 40 days??? Maybe the league should investigate the questionable claims made by the Warriors medical and front office staff.
What a win for GSW last night. Where are the Poole haters now? Lol.
Embiid with 40 and yet another reason I wouldn’t vote mvp. Offense was funneled through him to a fault. No one else on the sixers got into a rhythm and they poo doo all over themselves down the stretch. Yuck.
Warriors should have pursued the grievance against the Trail Blazers.
Pretty hard to do when Payton took responsibility publicly, and Paytons agent said the Blazers did nothing. Not sure what the warriors would have gotten?
They got their guy, who is playing tonight. The grievance would cost the Warriors $10,000 to lose, and drag Payton through the media mud.
I guess if the public admissions weren’t already out there I can see your point, but $10,000 is a lot to throw out a window for no reason, and fairly poor GM risk/reward decision making.