The chatter surrounding a dead trade from 2011 won't die.
Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Chris Paul was a guest on Uninterrupted's WRTS podcast Monday night, and he was asked about the story in which he brought down a potential trade from the Charlotte Hornets to the Warriors in 2011.
"Yeah, I remember it. True story," Paul told Maverick Carter and Paul Rivera. "Yep. that happened with a few teams. I actually never wanted to come out west. I'm born and raised on the East Coast, so I never was crazy about [Los Angeles] and all that until I finally got out here and lived out here. But at that time, all I really knew about The Bay, because I had been there to play the games, and everything was so hilly."
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This all started in mid-April with a story from "The Victory Machine" book in which author Ethan Strauss wrote that the Warriors almost traded Steph Curry and Klay Thompson to the Hornets for Paul in 2011. The deal fell through when Paul said he wouldn't re-sign with the Warriors, who at the time, were not an NBA playoff team.
A few days later, former Warriors general manager Larry Riley refuted the story that the Warriors contemplated trading the Splash Brothers for CP3.
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“First off, that’s false. That never took place,” Riley said on 95.7 The Game on April 17. “And therefore, I think everyone learned something. When you -- I had to tell my mother this because she grew up in the days of Walter Cronkite -- when you see something on TV or you read it in the newspaper, it’s not necessarily true.”
Now you have Paul claiming he did nix the trade to the Warriors.
[RELATED: Why if Steph-Klay for CP3 trade happened?]
So who's telling the truth? Who knows? But one thing is for sure. The Warriors sure are glad the reported trade never went down. They never would have become the powerhouse team they turned into, and they wouldn't have three NBA championship banners hanging in the rafters.
And the Warriors never would have gotten to crush Paul's championship dreams during their run to five straight NBA Finals.
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