Haynes: Warriors ‘Urged the League’ to investigate Blazers’ Larry Nance Jr. Trade

According to TNT NBA Insider Chris Haynes, the Golden State Warriors have urged the league to investigate the Portland Trail Blazers’ trades beyond this season, suggesting that their dealing of CJ McCollum and Larry Nance Jr. to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2022 involved misconduct.

Golden State hopes to establish a pattern of withholding information, as they continue to believe that Portland didn’t disclose the extent of Gary Payton II’s injuries prior to agreeing to trade him at last week’s deadline.

I was told that they’ve urged the league to look into Portland’s dealing with New Orleans last year when it was the CJ McCollum/Larry Nance 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 may have a pattern of doing something where they’re either withholding information or presenting misleading information. And so, without having all the details, what I do know is the Warriors have made it clear to the league that they need to look into that trade from last year.

Shortly after Nance Jr. was dealt to the Pelicans last season on Feb. 8, he underwent surgery on his right knee and missed more than 10 weeks of action. At the time the trade was made, Nance had been out of Portland’s lineup for just over a month with the knee injury, missing 18 games. It’s apparently the Warriors’ assertion that the Trail Blazers may not have disclosed the extent of Nance’s injuries to the Pelicans at that time.

If the league investigates and finds that the Trail Blazers were in the wrong, they could, according to Haynes, be facing a fine and/or loss of draft picks. Nothing at this stage would directly benefit the Warriors beyond having their grievance heard.

The four-team trade that saw Payton II return to the Warriors was agreed to on Sunday after a prolonged period of reconsideration.