The Clippers were unable to gain any traction in negotiations with Paul George‘s representative and the veteran forward will sign elsewhere, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link)
Aaron Mintz of CAA, George’s agent, and Clippers president Lawrence Frank spoke a short time ago, Woj reports, but there was no new movement on a contract and George is prepared to join a new team. The Clippers have released a lengthy statement confirming the news, as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN relays (via Twitter).
“Paul has informed us that he is signing his next contract with another team,” the Clippers announced. “… We negotiated for months with Paul and his representative on a contract that would make sense for both sides, and we were left far apart. The gap was significant. We understand and respect Paul’s decision to look elsewhere for his next contract. We explored an opt-in and trade scenario, but it would have left us in a similar position under the new CBA, with very little asset value to justify the restrictions.
“We will miss Paul. At the same time, we’re excited by the opportunities we’ve now been afforded, including greater flexibility under the new CBA.”
The Clippers now project to operate well below the first tax apron, so they’ll have the $12.9MM mid-level exception and a $4.7M bi-annual exception at their disposal. However, they won’t have the cap room necessary to sign a player capable of replicating George’s production.
Meanwhile, the Sixers will meet with George in California this evening and are the strong frontrunners to sign him, Wojnarowski confirms (Twitter links).
A report earlier on Sunday expressed optimism on the 76ers’ front that they’d land their top free agent target. The Athletic’s Law Murray now reports that George will likely make a decision tonight and no other teams besides Philadelphia are in the running for his services (Twitter link).
Philadelphia is armed with ample cap room to sign a max-level free agent and is reportedly prepared to offer George the four-year, maximum-salary contract the Clippers were unwilling to put on the table. Throughout their negotiations with George, the Clippers remained steadfast on a three-year deal, similar to Kawhi Leonard’s contract extension. Leonard signed a three-year, $152.4MM contract in January.
Another potential suitor, the Magic, essentially took themselves out of the picture by reaching a three-year agreement with another high-level wing, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
ugh
Good riddance. He’s a liar and a lousy player. Over paid and never delivers. Said he wanted to play in LA to be near his aging parents, family and Friend. Apparently the $150M contract from the Clippers offered him was not enough. He’s rather leave his old parents, family and friends to net another $25M. Money seems his priority. Clippers saw that.
Lousy player, lol
And if someone offered you $25 million more to do the same job elsewhere, you wouldn’t take it? GTFOH
$25 Mill is a generation of wealth for his family. And a legitimate chance to win a title. I’m sure his friends and family will understand
We’ll have to see what other moves the 76ers make but he’s nowhere closer to winning a title then he was a year ago. I think he’d be closer in Orlando. Embiid’s a better player then Banchero but Orlando has better support players.
…the Clippers could have kept him
You mean he did the thing most players in the NBA do? Shocked pikachu face.
The Clippers thought they could play hard ball and it would work due to those aforementioned advantages. Oops.
On top of that, he also gets to go to another contender. Plenty to like from his perspective.
To be fair, if you factor in taxes the difference is more than 25 million.
$25M should be just enough to move his parents to Philly.
Man that trade OKC made with LAC will go down as one of….if not THE worst in NBA history. What an absolute fleecing the Thunder did to the clips.
Really it was Kawhi Leonard fleecing the clippers. He suggested (demanded?) the Clippers make the trade in order to sign him. At the time though you can’t blame them. Made sense.
Going to wait until we see what this roster looks like/anything else they do. Still feels like a lot of moving parts on this roster. They added a couple of interesting pieces in the draftUDFA, but they wasted money on Drummon for some reason, and are losing Batum…They get the 3 and D wing they’ve badly needed a long time, but they still have things they need to do around him, and the knicks, Boston, Indiana, Orlando are pretty scary/about to be, based on rumors of what they may do/have already done
The Clippers have a lot of wing/guard depth, so they could handle losing him if they stay relatively healthy, though obviously you wouldn’t want to have nothing there in return…I get the year situation from that perspective, but I also think his value when healthy should supercede their current depth situation, and they should have just signed him
They traded sga and other pieces for a few years of mediocrity, smh
DeMar DeRozan incoming…
The Sixers might be nasty
Not really. Embiid is hurt every year. George is hurt every year. Clippers had a better team and in a worse division.
Nope, same ole same ole Philly. Trying to magically add three stars and hope it produces a championship. Morey is about 5 years to late.
Morey tries the 3 stars recipe and the rest of the league is trying to mimic the Celtics 2 stars and a bunch of fantastic role players.
Good job Philly!!!
ok, let’s do this Morey
PG13 misses too many games to make the 76ers take it to the next level.
76ers can be good enough to be #2 in the East with or without PG as long as Embiid is healthy. PG can elevate them if all works out.
After the addition of Bridges as it stands right now I’d still take a healthy Milwaukee or New York squad over a healthy 76ers.
Milwaukee needs to shake up their roster some for that to happen – they were inconsistent last season and started to look real old
Of course you will chuckturd because you are intrinsically a sixers hater.
Okay so this means Klay Thompson to the Lakers for 12 mil. Orlando went in a different direction, the Sixers prefer another guy and Dallas is still in the mix but will the Warriors take what they’re offering in the sign and trade?
Shoes are dropping, waiting to see what happens with Klay now.
By mid season, Podcast P and/or Jojo will get injured ……. returning in time for the playoffs, but will be hobbled enough for a 1st or 2nd round exit.
Chuckturd odds of kuminga falling on Joel emvps knee again and Joel emvp suffering a major knee injury.
Not often you see this kind of statement a) from the team losing the player b) before said player would’ve even signed with their new team. Trying to do damage control with the fans I guess.
He must have told them he in fact is signing with a certain team. Just hasn’t been spilled by the media yet. But probably a done deal except for dotting the i’s.
Yeah, just surprised they wouldn’t wait that extra little bit of time to release a statement. Not that it’s a big deal lol.
I’m a Clippers fan and, while I can’t speak for all of us, I’m happy they didn’t sign him. He’s way too old and injured to commit that kind of money to. I kind of feel bad for Philly but I’m happy for us. Clippers mistake was last year when they didn’t trade PG then. The Clippers had a nice run in the middle of the year but otherwise were awful to watch. I’m not saying next year will be better but to run it back and think it’ll be better is insane. PG13 is a good dude but doesn’t have a lot of fight in him. The Clippers, despite winning lots of games, were hard to watch last year and a lot of it came from PG. Time to turn the page
Not bitter or biased.
This will mean little for the Sixers if they don’t address their need for long, athletic defenders. They also need another ball handling scorer who can create offense by themselves.
The super teams formed by stars have a great history…
For every team that wins a ring, there’s 5 that blow up…
So the Magic are out. The Clippers are out. Pistons are the terrible. Clippers don’t want to do a S&T.
Sixers have the leverage unless he takes less and retests next season?
4 years, 180 is what I’d offer, settle on 4/190.
I’m hoping 4 years 160, but you’ll probably be closer