According to the Warriors, trades in the NBA have become increasingly difficult to accomplish in recent years.
Golden State owner Joe Lacob got candid about who he thinks is to blame during a recent appearance on The Athletic's “Hoops Adjacent” podcast, telling hosts Marcus Thompson and David Aldridge that he believes a lot of the blame lies with the other side.
“[It’s] “Trades are very hard to pull off because every GM wants to prove how smart they are,” Lacob told Thompson and Aldridge. “It's true. GMs want to impress owners. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.”
“But here’s the thing: if I have something to share with my legions of fans, I read everything, I read what people say, the criticisms and the positives. [it’s that] They don't understand how hard it is and how illogical the other party can be at times, and we can be illogical to a certain extent. But my point is, these things are really, really hard to get through.”
Is Lacob referring specifically to a specific trade negotiation? The Warriors are reportedly currently in talks with the Utah Jazz over the acquisition of All-Star forward Lauri Markkanen, but the two sides appear to be at odds over the terms of a potential trade.
Utah's initial request for Brandin Podziemski, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and draft capital would have been “meaningless” to Golden State, The Athletic's Shams Charania reported Monday, citing sources. And to some, such a request may have seemed illogical.
Before Golden State was rumored to be making a move for Markkanen, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy made similar comments to Lacob during his pre-NBA free agency press conference last month.
“In addition to certainly knowing the whole team, and I think I said this before, it's just hard to make a trade,” Dunleavy told reporters at Chase Center. “I can't stress this enough, there are a lot of good teams out there that know what they have to do, whereas in the past it just seemed like you could rip somebody off or you just had a different reason to make a trade.
“It's tough right now.”
Of course, the Warriors are no stranger to blockbuster trades, sending Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards for Chris Paul last summer, and across the league, NBA teams are making deals one after another.
But Lacob has made it clear he won't make a big trade for the wrong price, which may be why the race for Markkanen has stalled in the Bay Area, and for now, the CEO is happy enough with the Warriors' offseason efforts, which saw them land Buddy Hield, De'Anthony Melton and Kyle Anderson in Golden State.
“I'm not going to give you any examples, you can figure them out,” Lacob laughed, “but I will say this: At the end of the day, I'm really proud of what our team has accomplished this summer. People don't realize how good I think our team is.”
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