Yesterday, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard were introduced as part of the Los Angeles Clippers organization. The two spoke on how happy they are to join the franchise, be in their hometown, and what they’ll do on the court next season.
After the press conference, the two sat down with ESPN‘s Rachel Nichols to talk about how the two found themselves on the same team together, how they’ll be additions to the Clippers team already in place, how the two almost ended up in Indiana playing with the Pacers back in the day and the admiration they have for each other’s game.
When it came down to the trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder, PG13 said that the team was “stagnant” and last season was a test run to see how they could do moving forward. Ultimately, the organization and himself ended up parting ways mutually and OKC got a great package out of it (as he put it).
Today, speaking publicly for the first time, GM Sam Presti put a halt to the “mutual” comments and told the media that wasn’t so:
“I think the world of PG. I think everybody knows that. 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.”
There have been some reports that mentioned the fact both George and Russell Westbrook went to management after their playoff loss to the Portland Trail Blazers to talk about the future, and it’s been said that PG13 wanted out when Kawhi recruited him to play with him in L.A.
Even Paul said in his interview with Nichols the idea started when he wanted out of Indiana and the Spurs could not make it happen for him to land there.
So, this has been in the works for a while.