Paul George is getting sold on Oklahoma City, but it’s coming from a source you may not expect. Golden State Warriors superstar Kevin Durant has given George advice about playing for the Thunder a summer after he left Oklahoma City for the greener pastures of Championship-rich California.
George told Sports Illustrated that he got in touch with Durant shortly after he was traded to Oklahoma City shortly before free agency started earlier this month. George isn’t familiar with Thunder star Russell Westbrook and knew little about the area, but what Durant had to say was very positive for the Thunder.
“KD was like, ‘That place will blow you away,’” George says. “He told me, ‘They can offer what other teams can’t in terms of the people and the preparation and the facility, down to the chefs and the meals.’ He was pretty high on them. He thought it was a first-class organization in every way.” The Thunder, who essentially traded Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis for a yearlong free-agent pitch session with George, will take any recruiter they can get—even if it’s the guy who left, sweet-talking his replacement.
Thunder fans may be thinking to themselves if Durant loved Oklahoma City so much, why did he leave? It’s something George will deal with quite a bit over the next year as he reconciles leaving Indiana and playing a season with the Thunder before deciding his own free agent destination.
George says he knows fans in Indiana are frustrated with him essentially forcing his trade this summer, but asked for sympathy. Everyone approaches free agency differently, he said, but it’s impossible to get it right.
“There’s no right way to handle it,” George says. “I get the frustration. I get why people are upset. But at the same time, I want the average fan to understand that we only get a small window to play this game and more than anything you want to be able to play for a championship. I wanted to bring that to Indiana. I really did. I love Indiana. That will always be a special place for me and I’m sorry for not holding on. But I wasn’t sure we’d ever get a team together to compete for a championship and that’s where all this came from.”
Fans will always pick their team over a player when it comes to free agency, but you have to respect the fact that George is weighing all this heavily. It’s not a haphazard decision to look elsewhere even if everyone thinks he will just end up in Los Angeles in the end.
