What’s been known for years became official on Sunday. The Oklahoma City Thunder have won the Paul George trade over the LA Clippers.
Like a quarterback kneeling out the last couple of plays, George’s departure officially sealed the book of this multi-year saga.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, both sides have moved on from each other. The Philadelphia 76ers are seen as the favorites to win the PG sweepstakes.
The Thunder shocked the sports world when they shipped George — fresh off a third-place MVP finish — to the Clippers for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari and a treasure trove of draft picks.
Five years later, the trade laid the foundations of OKC’s current title window, which is in its infancy after last season. The Thunder became the youngest first seed in league history and were a foul away from forcing a Game 7 to determine a Western Conference Finals trip.
Gilgeous-Alexander headlines the Thunder’s second iteration of a championship squad. The 25-year-old has blossomed into one of the best players in the league. He finished runner-up for MVP last season and has had back-to-back years of All-NBA First Team honors.
Under contract for at least three more seasons, the Clippers supplied the Thunder with an MVP-caliber player amid his prime. Most NBA franchises spend years in the wilderness seeking that type of player. LA gift-wrapped OKC one.
If it were a basic George for Gilgeous-Alexander swap, it’d be viewed as a lopsided deal by itself. But what makes it historic is the draft capital attached that initially grabbed headlines when it happened.
The Thunder received four unprotected first-round picks, a lottery-protected first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps spanning from 2022-26. This means, yes — as hard as it is to believe, there are still fruits to enjoy from that five-year-old deal.
A few drafts in and the Thunder have turned one of those draft picks into Jalen Williams — OKC’s second-best scorer and part of its impressive trio.
The Thunder were gifted the lottery pick from the Clippers in 2022 because of the play-in tournament as — in a sick twist of fate — George missed their season-ending loss to the New Orleans Pelicans due to COVID-19 protocols.
To lay it on thick, this means Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams — arguably the two biggest reasons why the Thunder have such a bright future — landed in OKC solely off of LA’s work.
The Clippers have turned into the farm system for the Thunder. The same way the Minnesota Vikings nurtured the Dallas Cowboys’ 1990s dynasty in exchange for Herschel Walker.
There’s no way around it — that must sting. To add salt to the wound, OKC still owns its future draft picks for the next two draft cycles. The full effects of the massive deal have not materialized yet.
This likely explains the sunk-cost fallacy LA has fallen into over the years. It’s double-downed on its star duo. But the sad reality is its best shot to win a title with George and Kawhi Leonard was within its first two seasons.
After they missed their shots, it’s been about keeping a sliver of space opened for its window. The only problem is the two stars they’ve built around can’t stay healthy when it matters the most.
Leonard failed to play 60 games in his first four years with the Clippers — including being out the entire 2021-22 season. Even when he did enjoy his most healthy campaign this past year, he only played in two postseason contests — where he looked like a shell of his former self.
At 33 years old, Leonard’s career is on borrowed time. He simply can’t stay healthy for a full season. The days of him carrying a contender are long over.
George has been the healthier of the two but he’s also failed to play 60-plus games in his first four seasons. He missed LA’s entire 2023 playoff run.
Mortgaging their future meant the Clippers had a title-or-bust mentality. Despite making their first Western Conference Finals appearance in 2021, this trade has been a catastrophic disaster that has defined LA’s franchise.
Maybe in hindsight, it was an aimless ambition to build around Leonard and George. Their bodies have fallen apart over the years. But even then, it was fairly easy to predict this outcome. Both players have had major question marks about their durability for most of their careers.
This might’ve been a 10th-percentile outcome, but it was a real possibility the Clippers would’ve flamed out like this. Now — even with George’s departure — they can’t reverse course.
Lofty extensions to Leonard and presumably James Harden mean they must retool with one of the oldest and most expensive rosters — even if they know it’s an unjustified cause. A lack of future draft picks forces LA’s hand to dig deeper into its grave. There’s no turning back.
While they’re 10 feet below, shoveling dirt, they’ll likely hear faint celebrations from the Thunder above ground. LA’s front office deserves as much credit as OKC’s for what it’s built in recent years.
George’s decision to leave made a formality official. The Thunder are on the right side of history in one of the most one-sided blockbuster trades of the 21st century.
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