Raptors shut down Jordan Poole trade offer from Warriors: report
The Toronto Raptors aren’t interested in a Poole Party, it seems.
Earlier this summer, the Golden State Warriors made waves across the NBA when they sent 24-year-old guard Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards, for a package centred around 38-year-old future Hall of Famer Chris Paul, who had himself recently been traded from Phoenix as part of a deal for Bradley Beal.
Before the Warriors ended up shipping Poole to Washington, however, they checked in with the Raptors to see if they’d be interested in taking him on.
According to the Athletic’s Tim Wakakami, Toronto was offered the chance to trade for Poole for one of their key pieces — but ultimately shut the deal down.
“One of the Warriors’ calls, I’m told, was to check with Toronto about a proposal centering on Poole for 25-year-old forward OG Anunoby,” Wakakami wrote. “But the Raptors weren’t interested.”
Anunoby averaged 16.8 points, five rebounds and two assists in 67 games this season, where he led the NBA in steals with 128. He carries a cap hit of $18.6 million for next season, with a $19.9 million player option for 2024-25. Poole, meanwhile, is just starting a mega-deal with the Wizards: a four-year, $128 million contract originally signed with Golden State, with a salary of $27.4 million next season.
Poole actually scored his most points in an NBA game versus the Raptors on December 18 of last season, picking up 43 points in a 126-110 win over Toronto. A staple of the Warriors’ 2022 championship run, Poole started just four of 13 games in the 2023 playoffs as Golden State was eliminated in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers.
It seems like the Warriors are the latest in a long list of franchises who have struggled to get a deal done with Toronto’s notoriously difficult front office of President Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster.
“It’s fair to say front offices are pretty worn out on the attempts by Toronto to get ‘blood from a stone’ as one executive put it at the deadline in any deal,” Matt Moore wrote in an article for Action Network earlier this month. “Multiple sources have described the Raptors as frustrating to deal with. So why keep calling? ‘There are only 29 teams to work with.’”
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