After Kawhi Leonard was unable to recruit Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant to the Los Angeles Clippers in the summer of 2019, the two-time Finals MVP reached out to Paul George and basically asked him to request a trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Clippers.
The Thunder, who lost to the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the 2019 playoffs in five quick games, pretty much knew they couldn't run back the Russell Westbrook-George duo since they had reached their peak, which was the first round.
So, the Thunder traded Westbrook to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul, a 2021 first-round pick, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2025 first-round pick, and a 2026 first-round pick. OKC and Houston ironically met in the first round of this year's playoffs at Walt Disney World, with the Rockets winning in seven epic games.
While it looks like the Rockets made a mistake trading Paul for Westbrook since the latter can't shoot the ball in Houston's 3-point heavy system and the Rockets fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the 2020 playoffs in five games, it doesn't even compare to the colossal error the Clippers made by giving up the farm to get George from the Thunder.
The Thunder traded Paul George to the Clippers for Danilo Gallinari, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a 2021 first-round pick, a 2022 first-round pick, a 2023 first-round pick, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2025 first-round pick and a 2026 first-round pick. That's A LOT to give up for a guy in George who once again came up short in the playoffs this season.
In the 2020 postseason, George averaged 20.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.8 assists in 13 games against the Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets. He shot 39.8 percent from the field, 33.3 percent from beyond the arc and 90.9 percent from the free-throw line.
The Clippers, after taking a 3-1 series lead over the Nuggets, lost three games in a row in embarrassing fashion and George played a big part in the team's demise. In Games 5-7 versus the Nuggets, George put up 23.0 points, but he shot just 38.2 percent from the floor and had a negative plus-minus rating in each contest.
In the Clippers' Game 7 loss, George scored only 10 points on a woeful 4-of-16 shooting overall and 2-of-11 from distance. It got so bad for PG-13 that he hit the top of the backboard on one of his 3-point attempts.
oh my god pic.twitter.com/0HrWTSJvev
ā šSky Wobš (@WorldWideWob) September 16, 2020
As a result of the George trade, the Clippers don't have complete control of their own first-round pick until 2027, folks. George and Leonard can also become free agents after the 2020-21 season, while Gilgeous-Alexander is going to be a star in OKC for years to come.
Leonard is a two-time champion and has won a title in both conferences, so he doesn't have anything left to prove to anyone. Kawhi played great in the entire 2020 playoffs, but he had arguably the worst game of his career in Game 7 against the Nuggets. The future Hall of Famer scored 14 points and shot 27.3 percent from the field.
Both Leonard and George didn't score a single point in the fourth quarter against the Nuggets.
It's really looking like the Clippers made a huge mistake trading for Paul George. To be fair to Kawhi Leonard, there was no way he could have known that George was going to falter in the postseason again, but he also has to look at himself in the mirror, too, have stinking up the joint in Game 7.
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