The Warriors have filed a complaint with the NBA over the Blazers’ conduct during the Gary Payton II trade, though they are still working with the league to complete the four-team deal, according to multiple reports.
Payton was reportedly receiving Toradol shots in order to play for the Blazers, as he had not fully recovered from a core muscle injury that kept him out for 35 games this season. The Warriors say the shots were not disclosed by the Blazers when they decided to execute the trade.
The deal sent Payton to Golden State, James Wiseman to Detroit, Saddiq Bey to Atlanta and Kevin Knox II to Portland. The Warriors also sent five second-round picks — including two via Atlanta — to the Blazers in the deal.
The Warriors have until 6:30 PT to make a decision to either go through with the deal or void it.
A physical reveled that Payton would miss the next two or three months with the injury, while the Warriors made the trade thinking Payton would be available to play now and help with Golden State’s playoff push.
The NBA could punish Portland with a fine and loss of draft picks if an investigation were to discover “a failure to disclose relevant information” on Payton’s abdominal injury, according to Adrian Wojnarowski.
Blazers general manager Joe Cronin seemed to deny any wrongdoing when he spoke to the media on Friday.
“Player safety is super important to us, it’s a super important thing around the league,” Cronin said. “We were playing him, he was playing, and he had been cleared and we were confident that he was healthy when he was playing. We would not have brought him back if we thought he wasn’t healthy or if he was at risk. So you trust that we did the right thing and trust that our process was correct.