Here is my best guess of the chain of events: Blazers trade Payton Article comes out slandering Payton, accusing him of dogging it and being soft. Accuses him of not wanting to be here. Warriors conduct physical and ask Payton about his injury and claims of him being soft. Payton says that he's in a lot of pain and needed pain meds to play. Exaggerates to not sound soft. Warriors fail his physical and say that he claimed to be in too much pain and needed meds to play. Failed physical comes out and people refute his claims. Payton walks it back and now the Warriors are trying to save face.
It's Jason Quick's Athletic. After publishing a report Friday with sources claiming Payton received Toradol injections in order to play through pain with the Blazers, The Athletic amended that information in a report today from Golden State beat reporter Marcus Thompson and staff. The Athletic said their sources clarified that Payton had been receiving doses of Toradol orally, not via injection like the initial report claimed. Payton, according to sources, had been playing through pain in Portland. Sources added that the Blazers training staff had been pushing him to gut through it, giving him Toradol for his pain. Sources have clarified that he was given the Toradol orally, not via injection, as initially reported. This had not been relayed to the Warriors during the negotiation process. This new report comes a day after Payton’s agent Aaron Goodwin — who also represents Blazers star guard Damian Lillard — told NBA insider Chris Haynes that Payton “never took Toradol shots to be available for games during his time in Portland.” https://www.blazersedge.com/platfor...yton-nba-investigation-trade-deadline-lillard
Fuck off saying "clearing the way" they made the damn accident and then never called to get it cleaned up until the other motorists started honking at them incessantly.
I'll certainly be rooting against GS hard for the rest of time. New #1 enemy for me personally. And the schadenfreude I'll feel when they lose will nourish my soul.
1. They leaked to media before communicating to Joe. 2. They jumped to conclusions and didn't bother correcting with their media cronies when it was refuted. 3. They knew this guy was hurt on their watch and has a long history of this injury, so spare us all the outrage about "withholding information" 4. Did they really need to wait until today to make it official? That too... AFTER the Piston game ended so Wiseman couldnt play. 5. Multiple reports of the 3 month estimate being way exaggerated. Guess where that number came from... I get you have a source in GS. Doesn't mean they're absolved of all of this.
I'm not hurt personally, but if a false narrative went out that you were shooting guys up and forcing them to play against their will, when in fact none of that was true, I think there is reason to object. The Warriors certainly have not came out and taken a stance against the reports that have since been walked back. Last time someone in their organization leaked something big, they came out basically saying they were more upset with the leak (which was true) than the bad act. This time they seem fine with the leak, even though it may not be true.
Warriors issued an official complaint to the league. Could cost the Blazers a fine or loss of pick if found against.
I think you have to separate the insane rush to judgement by media from what's been happening at a front office level. All we really have at this point is what's been reported and tweeted and blogged. That started with an Athletic article by Shams in which he explicitly said Payton failed his physical, and that Portland had pressured Payton into Toradol injections and that they had concealed those injections. Also that Payton could miss 3 more months. All from that article that started the 72 hour shitstorm. And it's pretty logical to assume that Shams got that allegation from either someone in the Warrior organization or Payton. since then, the story has changed several times and each time, what Portland appeared to do bad, has become less and less bad. Mainly, the allegation about being pressured to take injections has dropped all the way down to Payton orally taking extra-strength Ibuprofen. Maybe Portland didn't disclose that but I'd wonder how big an issue it would be for a team to fail to disclose an oral anti-inflammatory. It could easily be that training staffs dispense anti-inflammatories several times a week and a failure to disclose could be an oversight rather than an attempt at concealment obviously, there could be more to the story. But the way the Warriors have been apparently leaking every hour to Woj it seems a logical assumption that if Portland had concealed an MRI or an examination result, Woj would have reported it.
Duh, of course, no skin in the game for GS. If PDX absolved, no repercussions to them. PDX should counter-claim slander and have it cost GS.
Why does that read as a book report by an 8th grader who didn't read the book, and just repeated themselves to fill in space?
