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Warriors GM: Trade Uncertainty ‘Was a Distraction’
SportingNews
At long last, the Warriors gave disgruntled shooting guard Stephen Jackson what he has been seeking since August — a trade. Monday, the Warriors sent Jackson and Acie Law to Charlotte for guard Raja Bell and forward Vladimir Radmanovic. Just after the trade was announced, SN’s Sean Deveney spoke with Golden State general manager Larry Riley by telephone.
Sporting News: So, there must be some relief to finally have this done.
Larry Riley: We’re pleased to have the opportunity to do a deal. It was something that we worked long and hard on, not just me, but the whole staff. It probably was taking up too much of our time. We got to the point where everything that could be explored was explored, and we knew really what all our options were. I don’t regret taking that time to come to this point, though.
SN: Was it causing too many problems, the uncertainty? It seemed like Don Nelson was tired of answering the question.
LR: It was a distraction, no question. It was a negative for the team. I am happy with the way it was dealt with, though. The veterans handled it because they’ve gone through this kind of thing before — it just happens in the NBA. The young guys, though, a lot of them had not seen this kind of thing. But, we’re looking forward to moving in the right direction now.
SN: You get two players, Raja Bell and Vlade Radmanovic. Do you expect that they can help you right away?
LR: We have new players joining us, and we’ll have to get them up to speed. Raja Bell has been a good defensive player for a long time, he played for Nellie in Dallas. And he can make a 3. We certainly welcome that. He is nursing an injury, and we don’t know how that will shake out, but he will play for us soon. And Vlade can play in an uptempo style. He gives us a little size. He is not a bruiser, I know, but we have been so small because of injuries that we need some height out there.
SN: You get out of Jackson’s contract, too, which has some long-term benefits. He was going to take up a big chunk of cap space.
LR: Right. It was important to do something positive for the Warriors. Going into the whole thing, we were going to wait to see what we could do. You’d like to be able to get players who can help you, or get cap relief. We feel we wound up with both. We wound up with two players who are veterans, and we could use that because we’re so young. Now, we have managed cap well and put ourselves into a good position capwise.
SN: Stephen Jackson wanted to go to a contender. Instead, it’s Charlotte. Did you speak with him about that? Was he upset?
LR: I spoke with Stephen this morning, and he was professional about it all the way. It never came up, whether he was happy with it or not. Last I knew, he was waiting to hear from Charlotte. So, there are no issues around that. I didn’t see it as my business; I was just trying to accommodate his trade request.
SN: Through all this, were you worried that the locker room could get poisoned to the point where you could not fix it? Did you have that fear with such a young group?
LR: Anytime you have a player who asks to be traded, you have that concern. That is one of the reasons we did it now rather than waiting till later. I don’t know exactly how long it would take for something like that to happen, and I don’t know that it would have ever happened. But sometimes prevention is the important thing. And we still don’t know. We may find that we didn’t act quickly enough, that we should have done it earlier.
SN: Raja Bell comes in with a reputation as a veteran and a professional. That had to be important.
LR: No doubt about it. We are such a young team, we need to have guys like that. We don’t have much age. We have Mikki Moore and Corey Maggette playing for us, and everyone else, they’re young, young guys.
SN: There has been talk, too, that Monta Ellis might be looking for a trade. Has he approached you?
LR: Well, I don’t discuss that and I won’t get into it. I won’t talk about trades or anything of that nature. We’re anticipating having Monta for a long time.
didn't know he signed after all left. Still...I dont blame him for wanting to win.
