Paul George Douses Lakers Rumors
This off-season has been entertaining for NBA fans.
Franchise stars like Chris Paul and Jimmy Butler were traded in surprise deals.
The Paul move is really a bummer, because now our graphics dudes need to re-edit the header over at our Fanorama store, which they'll do after Cristiano Ronaldo makes up his mind about where he's playing next season.
Life's rough. We know.
Anyway, back to hoops.
Free agency also saw Gordon Hayward and Paul Millsap decide to take their services elsewhere.
And of course, the Golden State Warriors were able to keep integral parts in their champion team together in the re-signing of Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala, and Shaun Livingston.
The most intiguing move, though, saw the Indiana Pacers trade arguably the best player in team history to the Oklahoma City Thunder for pennies on the dollar.
The pairing of George and Russell Westbrook will be an interesting one, to say the least.
Only this time, it's not yet clear who's gonna be Batman and who's playing Robin.
It's good to be Batman.
George isn't the level of player the Slim Reaper is, but dude's no slouch, either. Considering George will be replacing the Victor Oladipo role -- he and Domantas Sabonis were dealt to the Pacers in that trade -- as the team’s second scoring option, allegedly, the Thunder should be able to improve from their 47-win total last season.
The bigger question surrounding George, though, is where he'll be playing in the 2018-2019 season.
In the days leading up to his surprise trade to the Thunder, the former Fresno State Bulldog made it known to Pacers management that he had zero interest in returning to Indiana. That's when he named the Lakers as his preferred landing spot.
Dude may be in OKC for now, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that he plans on slidin' over to LA once his contract expires at the end of the upcoming season.
However, George has tossed some water on those flames. In a recent interview, he claimed that the most important thing to him is winning.
While he did mention that he grew up a big fan of both the Lakers and Clippers, George made it clear to L.A teams that he wasn’t blindly gonna join them.
As most NBA fans know, the Lakes have been very ungood the past few seasons, still trying to find its groove in the post-Kobe Bryant era. The good part.
Getting George could well turn the teams fortune’s in a single season, but he's made it clear to the Lakers that they have to show him something before he commits to LA.
As he said, why would he leave OKC if Westbrook and he are able to put together a solid season and get to the conference final or better?
Of course, the Lakes represent a shot at playing for his favorite team in addition to playing for the sport’s second-most marketable franchise.
But there aren’t a lot of stars that will voluntarily join a bad team just for the marketing value. Just ask Carmelo what it’s like to be a star stuck on a bad team, aka the NBA's most marketable franchise.
As always, there's no done deal until the ink's dry. Just 'cause PG13 thinks LA's the place to be doesn’t mean he’s gonna go there next summer.
But don’t fret for Lakers fans.
There's always LaVar Ball to entertain them for the foreseeable future.