The Los Angeles Clippers will battle the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night in a game that will be a heck of a lot more interesting than most people anticipated at the beginning of the season.
Somehow, some way, the Thunder have worked themselves smack dab into the middle of the Western Conference playoff picture, sporting a record of 37-23 in spite of just about everyone figuring they would be a lottery team after trading Paul George and franchise icon Russell Westbrook over the summer.
Oklahoma City will be facing George on Tuesday evening, as OKC sent him to the Clippers in a deal that netted the Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari and draft picks.
Gilgeous-Alexander has been a stud for Oklahoma City thus far, as the 21-year-old is averaging 19.3 points, 6.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game in what is just his second season in the NBA.
On the other side of the coin, the Clippers haven't gotten what it hoped it would get out of George through early March, as the star forward has missed considerable time due to his recovery from offseason shoulder surgery and other injuries that have plagued him throughout the year.
When George has been on the floor, however, he has been terrific, and the George-Kawhi Leonard duo has certainly looked fearsome for the Clippers.
But will the Clippers eventually regret trading Gilgeous-Alexander for George?
These questions are always a tough call, because you never really know. You can never say for sure what will happen five years down the line. You can only make predictions based on what we have seen at the current point in time.
Right now, though, my answer is no.
As awesome as Gilgeous-Alexander has been, a healthy George is a top 10 player in the league, and let's remember that acquiring him was essentially a condition to get Leonard to sign.
Pairing George and Leonard together was too tantalizing to pass up, even if it meant mortgaging your future. Heck, I'm not even sure LA did that, because George is 29 years old (he turns 30 in May) and Leonard is 28.
Those two still have plenty of great basketball left ahead of them, and even if they are both nearly a decade older than Gilgeous-Alexander, they are still in their prime years.
For a franchise like the Clippers that has never experienced any type of legitimate success (Los Angeles has never even made the Western Conference Finals), the George trade was something that had to be done.
Again, you can even look at it as if the Clips traded Gilgeous-Alexander and other pieces for George and Leonard, given that Kawhi may not have come in free agency had the Clippers failed to land another star.
We can praise Gilgeous-Alexander all we want, and that's fine, because the kid has a ton of potential and is already really good. However, chances are, he will never be as good as a prime George, and he will almost certainly never be as good as a prime Leonard.
The Clippers made the right move here, and it will likely be obvious come playoff time.
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