What if the Pacers had never been forced to trade Paul George?

How the Indiana Pacers would have fared had they kept Paul George -- and paired him with Gordon Hayward.

The Indiana Pacers have a track record of drafting excellent wing players.

While they may have let Kawhi Leonard get away in 2011, they struck gold the year before — though they did not yet know that to be the case.

Paul George was a relative unknown coming out of Fresno State, but he quickly developed into one of the more explosive two-way players in basketball.

George helped to revolutionize a Pacers team that took the “Big Three” Miami Heat to seven games in the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals. He made his first All-Star team that season, and just one year later averaged 21.7 points per game to go along with 6.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.9 steals per game.

Unfortunately, George suffered a gruesome broken ankle in the summer of 2014. While he would eventually return to form, the Pacers were far from the contenders they seemed destined to be just a few years prior.

With George practically playing on his own, the Pacers were bounced in the first round in 2016 and 2017, and George would be dealt to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the summer of 2017 after demanding a trade.

But what if the Pacers had found another superstar to team with George?

Laying the foundation

There were some pieces for the Pacers to build around heading into the summer of 2017. They had Myles Turner and steady point guard Jeff Teague leading the way, with guys like Thaddeus Young adding depth.

General manager Kevin Pritchard completely turned the roster over when he flipped George to the Thunder, also adding the likes of Bojan Bogdanovic and Darren Collison.

But before George made it clear that he wanted out, the Pacers were showing interest in former Jazz swingman Gordon Hayward. Of course, Hayward grew up in Indiana and played college ball at Butler.

Had the Pacers been able to entice George to stay by signing Hayward, they also may have found a way to re-sign Teague, who also grew up in Indianapolis. They also still might have had room for Bogdanovic–who signed for fairly cheap in the first place–or worked to re-sign Young.

Contenders in the East?

Pacers head coach Nat McMillan has helped this team retain a defensive identity, a system that George thrived in under former head coach Frank Vogel. If they added pieces like Hayward and still signed Bogdanovic, would the Pacers have contended in the East?

Remember, the East was fairly weak during the 2017-18 season, with a depleted Cleveland Cavaliers team advancing to the NBA Finals.

Sure, Hayward broke his leg in the first game of that season, but if he had stayed healthy, the Pacers had the kind of roster makeup that would have made them one of the more threatening teams in the East.

How that scenario would have played out in the next few years, who knows. George might still have departed in free agency in the summer of 2018. On the other hand, maybe he and Hayward would have been able to attract another star to Indiana in pursuit of a championship.