Yahoo Movies Paul George would be playing with LeBron James right now if the Lakers had stepped up
Paul George would be on the Los Angeles Lakers with LeBron James right now if it weren’t for Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti having the chutzpah to trade for him in July 2017.
Not only did the California native tell The Undefeated’s Marc J. Spears that he would have signed with the Lakers had he reached free agency as a member of the Indiana Pacers this summer, but Spears reported that George was irked by his hometown team’s unwillingness to trade for him last summer.
“It was 50-50 on deciding whether I wanted to come back home or if it was smarter to be in the situation I am in now,” George told The Undefeated. “But it wasn’t overstated. I wanted to play in L.A. That is where I wanted to go. Had that trade never went down, had I played one more year in Indy, I would have been in a Lakers uniform.”
George’s interest in the Lakers is no surprise. When he informed the Pacers that he had no intention of re-signing with them in June 2017, Adrian Wojnarowski reported for Yahoo Sports that the five-time All-Star ranked the Lakers at the top of his list of preferred destinations. While much of the league shied away from offering anything of significance for George with the knowledge that he was likely headed for the Lakers after one season, Presti dealt Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis for George.
George had one heck of a quote on that, too.
“It was a hell of a gamble,” George told The Undefeated. “That was balls to go against L.A. They tried it, tested their luck and Sam came up lucky.”
Presti’s luck was mitigated by the fact that Oladipo transformed into an All-NBA guard for the Pacers, but his gamble still paid dividends when George agreed to a four-year, $137 million extension at the stroke of midnight on July 1. The 28-year-old was so sold on OKC after one season with Russell Westbrook that he didn’t even give the Lakers a chance to make their free-agent sales pitch and, per Spears, never discussed teaming up with James beyond an informal discussion during last season.
According to Spears, the Lakers had the goods to deal for George, with Brandon Ingram already on the roster or the No. 2 pick they used to draft Lonzo Ball as the potential centerpieces of a deal, but Magic Johnson didn’t pull the trigger, opting instead to repeatedly tamper and hope George signed in free agency. There is logic behind that, since the New York Knicks notoriously traded a cache of assets for Carmelo Anthony in February 2011, when they could have just signed him a few months later, and the fallout contributed to years of frustrating attempts to build a competitive roster around him.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Ingram or Ball ever become a player of George’s caliber, and we know teaming George with James would be an awfully good first step toward a competitive roster.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors are smiling at all of this news, since they too gambled to land a soon-to-be free agent superstar that reportedly has eyes for the Lakers, trading for Kawhi Leonard in July.
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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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