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The NBA could have been very different, if Paul George and Anthony Davis had teamed up with the Pacers instead of splitting up to the Clippers and Lakers.
Davis has confirmed what George told the All The Smoke podcast, that George and Davis had conversations about Davis going to the Pacers and joining George.
Anthony Davis confirms he and Paul George had conversations about teaming up in Indiana.
— Christian Rivas (@RadRivas) December 20, 2020
On the podcast, George laid out what the two had planned and what caused it to fall apart for the Pacers.
“We had a top 3 player in the league at this time, a power forward, that I was trying to get to come to Indy. He wanted to come. I bring it to the front office and they denied it. It was AD. Me and AD talk. AD wanted to come to Indy, it (Pacers) was close to Chicago,” George said.
The denial by the organization was one of the reasons for the relationship to fall apart leading to George asking for a trade out of the Pacers. It would be granted with the franchise trading him to Oklahoma City for the Thunder’s Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. A year later George would be asked to be traded once again, this time going to his hometown Clippers, ironically putting him on opposing sides of the Los Angeles crosstown rivalry with the man who he originally wanted to team up with, Anthony Davis. They are now on opposite sides of one of the hottest rivalries in the NBA currently.
Oh how things in the league could have been very different if the Pacers had agreed to sign Davis.
The Pacers had a period of several years — under newly-crowned NBA champion head coach Frank Vogel, fresh off his win with the Lakers — in which they got very close to the NBA Finals. An alliance of Anthony Davis and Paul George might have been able to put them over the top… but it wasn’t meant to be.