If (or rather when) the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder win their respective conferences, these will forever be referred to as the “Paul George Finals.”
Not because Paul George will be playing in them but because the two teams that traded him ended up getting there without him. A more fragile ego might not be able to handle the truth.
Paul George, still in the league having recently completed his 15th season, was once headed for a Hall of Fame trajectory. He still may, as the Naismith Hall of Fame isn’t all that hard of a hall to get into.
George’s resume is noteworthy. 11 All-Star appearances. Six All-NBA team votes. He even finished third in MVP voting in 2018-19. He’s a 20 points per game scorer over those fifteen seasons.
The Pacers plucked Paul 11th overall back in 2010. He was by most accounts the best player on some respectably competitive Pacers teams, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals both in 2012-13 and 2013-14, when they lost both times to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat. There is no shame in that.
After playing 11 seasons in Indiana, George was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017 in exchange for Victor Oladipo and Damontas Sabonis. It was a trade that at that time, looked like it would work in Oklahoma City’s favor, which it did, but not for the reasons you’d expect.
George played two seasons in Oklahoma City, but never got far, eliminated in the first round of the playoffs both times.
Then, he moved to Los Angeles. In one of the most uneven trades in NBA history, the likes we may never see again, George was traded to the Clippers for essentially seven players. This deal wasn’t as lopsided as a gorilla taking on 100 men… but it’s close.
George was traded to L.A. for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who became this year’s MVP, Danilo Galinari and five first round draft picks, one of whom became OKC’s second best player, Jalen Williams. The fact that George was once traded for seven players shows just how fond of George some GMs were at the time, or perhaps more appropriately, how delusional some GMs can be. While most NBA executives generally jump at the opportunity to land a superstar, others are shrewder, recognizing which players have superstar potential and won’t immediately sabotage your salary cap upon landing at the airport.
Again, at the time, this trade looked like a good deal for the Clippers, who would team George up with perennial All-Star and fellow SoCal native, Kawhi Leonard, inevitably making a run at a title. But as any NBA fan knows, no trade ever works out well for the Clippers. Since acquiring George, that other L.A. team has been underwhelming, winning only three post-season series in five years, a far cry from what they’d hoped.
In the meantime, OKC GM Sam Presti, the modern-day savant by whom all NBA GMs are measured, turned the Paul George trade into a championship caliber team that might be around for a while. He who laughs last, is not named Paul George.
Meanwhile, poor Paul is now playing in Philadelphia and has probably stopped, or at least should stop, reading media clippings about how the blockbuster deals he’s been the focus of has made his former teams better and his current teams worse.
While George probably bears no ill will toward either of his former franchises, and most assuredly has people he cares for within each of them, these Finals can’t help but sting. Ratings will be down and not because Paul George won’t be watching.
If I got traded from one company to another, and my former company suddenly thrived while my current company stagnated, until I was traded yet again and my former company, the one that just got rid of me, achieved success like it never had before and my new current company leveled off, I’d inherently have to question my self-worth. Not that Paul George wasn’t put on this Earth to play basketball but there’s no denying it might be more than just a coincidence that his former teams demonstrated dramatic improvements as soon as he skipped town. Credit his former GMs with the foresight of parting with a superstar. I’m sure there was a time when they weren’t crazy about moving George, but both are now unquestionably in a better place, or at least one win away from getting there.
Paul George has become the NBA’s version of Sliding Doors. He was incapable of being the best player on a championship team and by the time his career began to wane, he became incapable of being the second-best player on a championship team. If nothing else, his career has been characterized by bad timing.
It’s the NBA and almost everyone, over time, gets traded but it’s hard to come up with one player, and two chess moves, so directly responsible for teams ending up in the NBA Finals. If he were to show up to one of these games, you can rest assured he’ll be shown on television with Taylor Swift-like frequency.
Far too often, we talk about the collective of sports rather than the individual. The Athletic released an article earlier this season about how current Pacers superstar Tyrese Haliburton once obsessed over his online criticisms, how it affected his game and how he had to drown out the noise to become a better player.
You’ll be hearing plenty about Paul George in the upcoming weeks. After fifteen seasons in the league, on the downside of his career, and unlikely to ever again be as relevant as the two teams that traded him, here’s hoping he takes it all in stride. The $500 million he’s earned over his career should help ease his pain.
