Paul George Trade ‘Not Mutual’ – Thunder GM
Paul George spoke earlier in the week about his trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Los Angeles Clippers.Â
During his introductory Clippers press conference, Paul George said the decision was mutual. He alluded to some sort of agreement he had with OKC upon signing a 4-year extension in 2018.Â
George said the trade was “mutual thing between both of us that the time was up and we both had ideas of doing things differently.”
However, OKC general manager Sam Presti, speaking publicly about the trade for the first time, refuted these claims.
Want $250 to bet on NBA futures?
Sign up today!
“I think the world of PG. Everybody knows that,” Presti said.Â
“I know that he had used the term ‘mutual.’ I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that because that would infer that we were wanting to trade Paul George, which I think most people would agree that that probably wasn’t on the top of our offseason priority list.
“But I would say that it was not adversarial at all, and I also fully respect the way that it was handled. And the fact that we were able to make it work in a way that benefited the franchise made it something that we could do.”
Tapping up has been a hot topic this NBA offseason. Kawhi Leonard effectively recruited George to the Clippers this summer. Although, Pretsi says that the most important thing was finding a good solution for everybody.Â
Read: AJ Green Expected to Miss 6 – 8 Weeks With Torn Ankle Ligaments
“The players have the freedom to be able to talk and recruit, and there’s nothing limiting that, and that obviously changed the game for us,” Presti said.Â
“But I feel really good about the fact that we were able to make it work for everybody and figure out a solution, because based on just looking down the runway, we were probably going to be faced with that scenario probably after the following season. He would have had one year left on his contract at that point in time, and although we may have had more time to plan, I don’t think we were going to be in a position to be able to recoup the value that we were able to in that particular situation.”