Joe Lacob, the owner of the Golden State Warriors, explained why the team decided to trade D’Angelo Russell in February.
Lacob said trading Russell to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for Andrew Wiggins was based on fit.
“We thought (acquiring Russell in a sign-and-trade) was a great opportunity to be able to get a player in the wake of losing a Kevin Durant. To get anything of that quality was just an advantage. Whether it worked out or not.
We did not do it just for that reason. But we did it because we thought he could potentially be a part of what we were building for the future.
That wasn’t without risk. We all understood that he was another guard, so we had to wait and see how it all worked out. I think as time went on we obviously began to take a little bit different look at the whole thing in terms of the fit.
And even though he’s a good guy and really performed quite well for us, I think we all made the decision that perhaps there was a better fit out there than that.
Maybe it could have worked out, but we made the decision – right or wrong, we’ll find out – that (Andrew) Wiggins would be the better fit for us. And we think it’s a great fit, actually,” Lacob told Tim Kawakami of The Athletic.
