The Thunder acquired Paul George and Carmelo Anthony and expected to compete with the Rockets and Warriors atop the Western Conference. Instead, the team is struggling to stay above .500. Yet, despite the underwhelming results, Oklahoma City is still showing no indication that George is on the table in trade talks, Bleacher Report’s Ken Berger hears.
Berger adds that the Thunder understood the risks of acquiring George, who can become a free agent this summer, and they weren’t delusional about his chances of committing to the team long-term.
George gave the Pacers insight into his thinking about his upcoming free agency, something that spurred to the franchise to listen to trade offers. It’s possible that he informs the Thunder that he likely won’t be sticking around should he come to that conclusion, though the situations are dissimilar.
“Well, I think this is a different scenario because it’s our only year together as far as we’re on one-year contracts,” George tells Berger. “I want to put everything into this and see where that takes us. I’m not giving up; I’m not giving in. I want to give this thing everything I have and we’ll see where it goes.”
While George remains open to staying in OKC beyond 2018, it appears the short-term success will play a role in his future decision making.
“We all enjoy playing with one another,” George explained. “This could possibly be me being here for multiple years. But … I’m not going to just throw it in and be like, ‘No, I’m done with this.’ We’ve got a long, long, long season ahead of us. And I’m committed to that.”
One anonymous Western Conference league executive believes George is simply putting on a face to the media.
“George has got to be frustrated,” the executive said. “You can tell by the way he’s playing. He’s not playing with any enthusiasm, not playing with any spunk. He’s kind of playing like a second or third wheel out there.”
The executive was critical of the team’s ball movement and chemistry, adding that the three stars simply do not play well together.
“It’s a three-man circus,” the executive said. “…You can tell by watching them play, it’s out of sync. There’s no rhyme or rhythm to how they play.”
But they should be.
…..yet
Yup he is definitely gone to the Lakers.
“He’s not playing with any enthusiasm, not playing with any spunk.” That’s pretty much the way he’s played the last few years. He’s an above average one-on-one player…but not much a team or clutch guy. Further, he’s never been “the guy” or even “one of the guys” on a winning team going back even to college. He was a secondary player on the Pacer teams that went to conference finals.
I read the Thunder plans on keeping George and Anthony the entire season because they don’t want to take the chance of looking bad in trades again (and making Westbrook look worse). I agree with @nsideindy. He didn’t have great rookie or second year when he was learning from Danny Granger.
PG can wallow in his BMOC puke!!! The knife wound in this Pacers fan’s back will never heal. We overpaid him, and he tried to tube our team by leaking his plan to leave. We recovered and got two good players but no thanks to him despite the moron cavs owner saying we should have got more. VO will make the all star team…PG can go house hunting in LA. VO is clutch…PG chokes on that game changing shot. OKC…move him out. Don’t give him that big contract…he can’t deliver and it will kill your cap space. Let him go…Pacers fans are glad he is gone!!
Fortunately the Pacers traded him and got something back. Hopefully OKC does the same thing this time (Durant) and trades him for an asset.