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Paul George signed a four-year, $136.9 million contract this summer to stay with the Oklahoma City Thunder, shocking many around the league.
For the last two years, every rumor stated that George was intent on going home and playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. After the Thunder lost to the Utah Jazz in the first round of the 2018 playoffs, many surmised there was no way George would go back to OKC since the club underwhelmed.
That turned out not to be the case, as the Thunder did a great job of selling Paul George on their future throughout the 2017-18 regular season, and the All-Star swingman liked playing with star point guard Russell Westbrook and center Steven Adams and for coach Billy Donovan.
In an interview with Royce Young of ESPN, George talked about why he enjoys playing with Westbrook, and he also brought up an interesting fact about Lakers superstar LeBron James.
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After LeBron signed with Los Angeles, the prevailing thought was Paul George would head home to team up with The King. George, however, decided not to:
“My thing is, I like if I go on that court and there's a guy I don't have to worry about,” George says. “He's going to bring it. When I look at Zero [Westbrook], I have no worries that night about what I'm gonna get out of him. I know he's gonna bring it, he's going to give everything he has. I like that. That motivates me, that pushes me, that keeps me going.
“You could say that about a lot of guys. LeBron is the best player in our league, but some people have a hard time playing with him. One thing you can't say about Russ is that he's not ready or he's not prepared. That's him every night.”
After Kyrie Irving requested a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer of 2017, a narrative began to circulate around the league that if you're a scorer or player who needs to ball in your hands to operate, it's going to be hard to do that playing next to LeBron.
James dominates the ball, so unless you're a spot-up shooter or big man, it's going to be difficult to play your game as a point guard/scorer. George and Irving aren't the only stars who supposedly didn't/don't want to play with LeBron. Rumors have surfaced that Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard also don't want to play for the Lakers because James is on the roster.
