Really good read. Without Highkin directly saying it, the athletic article’s timing was intentional and designed to screw with the Blazers. No prior notification? No asking for comment? Sports journalism is still journalism … or should be. The normalcy of unquoted sources regarding trade rumors, the draft … understood. On something like this? Pathetic.
I would hope this is green font, because the players association wouldn't look too kindly on the NBA "forcing" a player to leave a team that he doesn't want to leave.
Every fan new of Payton’s slow return to play even after he was cleared by team doctors. Everyone knew he missed multiple games even after he returned to playing. Somehow it’s a shock to the Warriors that he’s not 100% and that he’s taking a common NSAID? Different doctors can have varying opinions on a player’s injury. Not sure where there’s evidence the Blazers tried to hide anything.
Furthermore, I would argue Golden State knows GPII far better than we ever got to know him. How he moves, when he's hurting and when he's healthy. They literally watched him play the day before the trade IN PERSON, players and staff talked with him after the game when they were hugging. It's not like the trade materialized out of thin air the next day. They had clearly been talking about it for a while. They had every opportunity to perform their due diligence. Yet we're smeared like we're trying to put one over on Golden State, WHERE HE WAS INJURED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Ridiculous.
This is a really bad take from someone that usually doesn’t have them? Wondering were you are going with this?
I know you don't know as 100% fact the answers to my 3 specific questions, nobody does. I'm asking you to venture a guess given a combination of current reporting and common sense. Please give it a shot. I'm not attacking your friend/source, I'm just asking because if your answer to my 3 questions is no, then I think that might help answer your original question to why some people objected to the first reports.
But yeah, blazers need some blame in this. Verdict is out. No blame on the blazers. This isn't a "both sides" bullshit thing. GSW tried to railroad is and we told them fuck you. Thing is, I didn't have much of an issue with GSW until this. Now they can go get bent
What if this IS 100% for him now? I’m in my 40s and my body just hurts sometimes. My knee will just hurt. I didn’t do anything. I’m just getting older and Payton is getting older too.
Let's also acknowledge once more because it's not getting enough attention. He was cleared by the surgeon first. Not the team.
https://calsportsortho.com/treatmen...ine) is a,cortisone injections for joint pain. I'd had them before but still, do just a simple google search before you post something that seems so certain.
And what is entailed in failing a physical? Is there a specific medical conclusion that he is unable to play basketball for the foreseeable future or is it the opinion of the staff to accept the results of the physical or reject them? If it's the former, please point to me the specific language where he "failed".
I think they meant that there wasn't an injection done by the Blazers, not that there isn't such a thing as a shot.
If Payton went in and stupidly made a bunch of exaggerations about his pain and why he wasn’t playing, would that trigger a fail?
