The Warriors orchestrated one of the biggest, most shocking trades of the summer when they traded Jordan Poole for Chris Paul and their owner has given his candid thoughts about it.
Its not often you see an NBA trade that involves sending away a 24-year-old prospect for a 38-year-old who’s injury history is more than questionable.
But, Paul is no ordinary 38-year-old and is likely a future Hall-of-Famer so if things do work out, the Dubs look like geniuses.
It is no secret that a big reason for Poole being traded was the friction between him and Draymond Green, which started during training camp when Green infamously punched Poole.
Golden State majority owner Joe Lacob was asked point blank whether the biggest decision of their offseason was to trade Draymond or Poole, or if they could find a solution to keep both players.
“I don’t want to say absolutely that’s true,” Lacob told The Athletic. “I think it’s fair to say there was some level of concern going forward whether that was going to be something that would work out. To be honest with you, I think it would’ve worked out, could’ve worked out. But I think it is fair to say that in order to make the numbers work and so on, someone probably was going to be the odd man out. It just turned out, and it wasn’t planned, that it was Jordan.”
The owner also said that the Paul for Poole trade wasn’t an easy decision and even he was dubious about the idea of acquiring CP3 at first, but explained how he thinks it will all work out for the best.
“We kind of warmed to that idea and the more we processed it the more we thought it really made sense — at least for the short-to-intermediate term,” Lacob said. “Certainly longer-term, I’m not going to deny, we gave up a great asset in Jordan Poole, probably has a decade or so left to play in this league. He’s probably going to just get better. We were going short-term versus long-term on this. But for a lot of different reasons, both basketball reasons and financial reasons, it just made sense to do it.”
It is going to be a very interesting season for both the Dubs and the Wizards.
The former will be looking to secure another championship in their dynasty with their even-more veteran core, while the latter has just undergone a huge rebuild and will try to forge a winning combination with Poole and Kyle Kuzma.
Mark December 22 on your calendar because that will be the day that Poole will play the Warriors for the first time on their home court.
Let’s just hope there are some baddies sitting in the front row.