Paul George Traded To OKC

[max215]

Sam Presti turned Serge Ibaka into Paul George. That's remarkable.

[ETNCeltics]

So freaking frustrating.

George went cheap. Butler went cheap. But hey, we have "assets".

To be fair, Butler was not all that cheap. Decent return for the Bulls, IMO.

But PG going for Dipo and Sabonis?? THATS CHEAP! I have a hard time imagining Pacers would choose that package over Bradley+Crowder and MEM and LAC 1st rounders.

Which means that PG likely told Ainge that, come hell or high water, he was going to LA.

Mike

Amazing that people don't get this.

It's not a failure on Ainge's part. Ainge simply didn't want to give up a good asset for a rental.

[kraidstar]

Honestly an IT/Horford/PG13/Hayward lineup would be unlikely to win a championship, and would be absurdly expensive to keep together next year.

Aside from the 2004 Pistons, what was the last team to win an NBA championship without a top-10 player?

We might have just dodged a major bullet.

[Celtic Fan Forever]

Honestly an IT/Horford/PG13/Hayward lineup would be unlikely to win a championship, and would be absurdly expensive to keep together next year.

Aside from the 2004 Pistons, what was the last team to win an NBA championship without a top-10 player?

We might have just dodged a major bullet.

I think you could make the case that Paul George is a top 10 player

[MBunge]

Paul George for Oladipo and Sabonis, straight up. No picks included. Absolutely no downside to this trade for OKC at all.

Don't make it? Westbrook probably doesn't sign the extension and you're likely going to lose him and have to start all over anyway, while also having long-term money committed to Oladipo.

Make it? Get out of Oladipo's contract, give Westbrook incentive to re-sign, and lessen his work load for next season.

The only downside is that they've got one year and then could start a rebuild with nothing for George, nothing for Westbrook, without their 2016 lottery pick and without their second leading scorer from last season.  Yeah, they'll bottom out quickly but they'll be starting the rebuild with an awfully bare cupboard.

Mike

[Billz401]

I don't understand how the narrative here is ainge is an idiot when it should be Indy are idiots.. AB, Crowder, smart/rozier is a heck of a lot better return than oladipo and sabonis. Nvm the plethora of non Brooklyn picks we could have added..

I'm sorry but I'm with ainge here. No point in selling the whole farm for a 1 year rental. It's gotten to the point now where teams would rather take a lesser haul than to make a deal with ainge, which makes zero sense

[colincb]

For all the whining, nobody in this thread has a clue as to what happened including myself.

On the face of it, Indiana could have got a better deal from the Celtics and didn't.

Maybe the Pacers didn't want to trade to the Cs

Maybe the Cs didn't want to trade for PG.

My guess is the latter.

[chambers]

I wonder why the Pacers wouldn't wait to see what happened with Hayward first?

Almost like a spite trade.

[RJ87]

Sam Presti turned Serge Ibaka into Paul George. That's remarkable.

And pulled it off without any leaks or "sources". Meanwhile, Danny mouthpiece Steve Bulpett keeps talking about how these teams are being mean to the Celtics because they're actually asking for something in trades and no one wants to wait for Danny to take his morning dump before negotiating.

[Snakehead]

That's remarkable.

Sure but I seriously give George like a 20% chance of resigning there and I feel like that's generous.

[max215]

That's remarkable.

Sure but I seriously give George like a 20% chance of resigning there and I feel like that's almost generous.

I think 20% is very generous.

[Roy H.]

So freaking frustrating.

George went cheap. Butler went cheap. But hey, we have "assets".

To be fair, Butler was not all that cheap. Decent return for the Bulls, IMO.

But PG going for Dipo and Sabonis?? THATS CHEAP! I have a hard time imagining Pacers would choose that package over Bradley+Crowder and MEM and LAC 1st rounders.

Which means that PG likely told Ainge that, come hell or high water, he was going to LA.

Mike

Amazing that people don't get this.

It's not a failure on Ainge's part. Ainge simply didn't want to give up a good asset for a rental.

I think there's very little chance George joins the Lakers.

[Dino Pitino]

"It's gotten to the point now where teams would rather take a lesser haul than to make a deal with ainge, which makes zero sense"

It seems like a fantasy league where an owner has cornered the market on assets and the rest of the league is colluding to ice him out of trades just out of spite.

[Snakehead]

That's remarkable.

Sure but I seriously give George like a 20% chance of resigning there and I feel like that's almost generous.

I think 20% is very generous.

lol it is.  I can't say it isn't a good move regardless for them but yeah I think in the end like some others are saying this was on the Pacers.  If they want to do this move oh well.

[kraidstar]

Honestly an IT/Horford/PG13/Hayward lineup would be unlikely to win a championship, and would be absurdly expensive to keep together next year.

Aside from the 2004 Pistons, what was the last team to win an NBA championship without a top-10 player?

We might have just dodged a major bullet.

I think you could make the case that Paul George is a top 10 player

Maybe.

But since the 1980's every title team was led by someone better than him except for maybe the 2004 Pistons.

If he's our best player it's highly unlikely we win a championship.

This is the cold, hard reality of the NBA.

The vast majority of championship teams are led by all-time great players like LeBron, MJ, Russell, Duncan, Kobe, Bird, Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem etc.